


After All These Years

by jestbee



Series: Fic Every Day in June 2019 [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dog fic, Dogs, Domestic Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Slow Burn, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 11:38:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 50,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19150270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: They met her after tour. Martyn’s friend’s dog had puppies and Phil fell in love at first sight. Dan did too, but he’ll deny it if you ask.Dan tries to keep his distance, because she’s Phil’s dog not his, but she isn’t having any of it.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been writing this since September of last year so that’s definitely the longest I’ve ever worked on something before posting it. It started as a ‘If it happened now’ fic, and grew into this. It belongs to @i-am-my-opheliac and I’m posting the first chapter on her birthday because it’s all for her. Happy Birthday Lia, I hope you like it! 
> 
> Thank you to @phanbliss for reading in the beginning, and to @intoapuddle for cheering me on when I doubted I would ever post this at all. ily you guys <3 
> 
> I’m going to alternate this with IAW for the rest of fedij, with Monday’s still belonging to ATSC.

They met her before tour.

"Martyn's friend's dog just had puppies," Phil had said. 

"Martyn knows a dog breeder?" 

"No," Phil said, staring at his laptop screen a little too intently, like he was trying not to seem too eager. "Martyn's friend is an irresponsible dog owner who didn't get her dog spayed and ended up with a litter of puppies she can't keep." 

"Oh," Dan said. "That sucks." 

"Did you... um... want to go see them?" 

"You can't get a dog, Phil." 

"Actually," Phil said, looking up to catch Dan's eye on the other end of the couch. "We can. I spoke to Mark and he said that if we wanted to pay a further deposit we could have a dog here." 

"Why... why were you even asking that?" Dan said, finally glancing over at him. He was aware he probably looked more annoyed than he was.

Truth be told he was kind of intrigued about the whole thing. 

"Dunno," Phil shrugged, "I guess we just assumed pets were a no go in a rented place but... they're not." 

"We're going on tour," Dan reminds him. 

"I know. I know. We could just go look at them though." 

Dan bit his lip and looked back at the email he was drafting. 

"Tiny, tiny puppies," Phil said. 

"You'll get attached," Dan said. 

"I won't, promise."

"I know you, you will."

"No. I can be perfectly not attached, heart of stone, me. Cold hearted through and through." 

Dan laughed, because if there was one thing his best friend was not, it was cold-hearted. He sighed, it was bound to end in disaster but he liked the idea of seeing tiny puppies. 

They were going on tour and the puppies needed homing straight away, so it wasn't like it really mattered, no matter how attached Phil got. He'd just have to put up with Phil's pout for a few days afterwards as he adjusted to a no-puppy lifestyle again but, it was nothing popcorn and marshmallows wouldn't fix. Or so he figured.

"Alright," he'd agreed, "we can go see the puppies." 

That had been five months ago. Then they'd gone to see the puppies and she'd been tiny and her eyes were only just open but she'd tottered over to Phil as soon as he came in. 

Phil had that way about him though, endless amounts of love for all things, especially puppies, and he'd seen that look in Phil's eyes straight away. Attached, just like Dan had said he would be. 

"Oh god," Dan had said, and Phil had just smiled at him. 

The owner, Kelly, agreed that she could look after her for five months while they were on tour, as long as Phil gave her payment up front and some money towards food. So that side of Dan's argument was beaten to the punch before it started. 

She also said she'd take care of getting her immunisations and everything that she needed. Kelly was really helpful, Dan thought. Great.

"I just want to make sure they all go to good homes," she said, "that's why I'm not like, advertising them online or anything. You two seem lovely, and you're Martyn's family, so anything I can do to help I will."

That was when Phil put on his sad puppy-dog eyes, which would usually work all on their own. But now there was also an actual puppy present with sad eyes of its own, and Dan was too busy wondering how to correct her about the whole family thing and so he'd crumbled. 

"Fine," he'd said. "Whatever."

He was probably destined to have them both gang up on him for the foreseeable future anyway, so might as well start now.

Phil had pulled him into a hug then, knocking the wind out of him. He looked elated, happy and wild, like all his dreams had come true. 

Dan, despite himself, felt his own joy at the sight. The puppy lapped at his fingers like she was grateful and Phil let his hand linger on Dan's shoulder.

"She'll be fine," Dan had said as they left. 

"We can go get her as soon as we are back though, right?" 

"Yes Phil, you can go get your dog when we get back." 

"Our dog," Phil had said almost straight away. 

Dan thought that was probably something he should have clarified, but at the time he'd been too stunned to come up with the words.

They'd visited once more before they left, and Phil had been emailing Kelly for updates more than was probably necessary while they were away. By the time they were on the final plane home, he had a whole folder in his inbox full of pictures of the small white and tan puppy. 

She is eight months old by the time they pick her up, mid-October, once the editing of the film is done and they finally have time. They've missed her really tiny phase, but she is still really cute.

Phil is enamoured, a wide smile breaking onto his face that he doesn't lose the entire way home. Dan keeps glancing down at the fluffy head of the dog, and then back up at Phil, thinking how crazy it is that this is his lot in life now.

She can walk on a lead and is already house trained and Kelly said her temperament is just adorable, if not a little clingy. 

Dan doesn't think she really remembers Phil from before, but she seems to like him just as much as she did when they'd first been to see her. 

You can't help but love Phil though, Dan thinks, not once he's decided you're worth looking after. 

She likes Dan just as much. She licks his hands in the back of the car on the way home, and jumps all over him on the couch when they're getting her settled. 

Dan is trying to maintain his distance a little bit, because it's Phil's dog not his, but Phil won't have any of it. 

"She likes you," Phil says. 

"Well, good, I'm glad your dog doesn't hate me seeing as how I have to live with her." 

"Our dog," Phil corrects him again, and Dan's chest floods with something warm and he has to look away. 

"Do you know what you're going to call her?" Dan says later when she's eaten her dinner and they've showed her all the toys they bought her. Some of them are from shops in America, because Phil can't help himself.

"Buffy," Phil says. 

Dan rolls his eyes. 

"Do you hate it?" Phil says. 

Dan chuckles, because of course that's what Phil would call her. 

"It's your dog," Dan says, "name her what you want." 

Phil looks at him with his head tipped a bit to the side and Buffy looks up at him, then over to Dan, and adopts a somewhat similar expression. 

"Our dog," Phil says. 

Dan rolls his eyes again at the two of them and reaches for his phone to try and hide his smile. 

He flicks to the camera app and levels it on Phil who puts his head down next to Buffy. She turns to instantly lick his face and his smile is interrupted. His eyes are screwed shut but the pure joy in every curve of his face is so evident that Dan can't help smiling in response. 

"Cute," Dan notes, as he takes the picture.

Buffy turns to bound at Dan across the sofa and Dan gets a picture of her as she collides with him. 

They take many pictures on the first day, short videos of her sniffing all over the house, a very cute one of her trying to fit inside Phil's trainer which, because they're so big and she is still so small, almost works. Her fluffy butt sits down on it anyway, tail wagging like she's pleased with herself. 

Buffy is a welcome addition to the flat, and they spend the day doing very little else but playing with her and showing the the house. She runs between them with reckless abandon, sniffs at the edges of the couches and shoves her nose into their pile of board games. Dan can't tear his eyes away from how happy Phil looks, takes picture after picture, videos and boomerangs of the two of them. He feels happy, content. 

The evening might be the best time, Dan thinks. They're sat on either end of the couch, laptops open, lit by only the glow of the screens, and Buffy is curled into a fluffy circle in between them. 

Phil has a hand rested on her back and seems to be enjoying the soft rise and fall of her breathing. She makes a rolling sigh through her nose eventually and rolls on to her back so that Phil can scratch idly at her tummy. Her eyes dip closed and she looks peaceful.

Dan feels calm, and soft, and it's nice having a dog about the place. He feels warm and sleepy and it's probably time to turn in. 

"I'm going to bed," Dan says, standing up. 

"Okay," Phil says, "goodnight." 

He gets to the door when he hears a clatter of little feet behind him on the wooden floors. 

"Hey B," Dan says, looking down her little face, ears standing on end, "I'm going to bed, you can't come with me." 

Buffy tilts her head at him and he reaches down to scratch behind one ear for a second before telling her to stay. Luckily, she doesn't follow him down the stairs when he goes to bed. 

He's folded into his duvet about an hour later with his eyes closed, when he hears a soft yap. 

"No, Buffy," Phil says in a voice that is probably supposed to be a whisper, but isn't quite managed. "Dan is asleep, you'll see him tomorrow." 

Buffy yaps again and there is a scrabble of tiny ineffectual claws against his door.

"Oh, come on," Phil says. 

Dan gets up and opens his door to see Phil with Buffy hooked under one arm. She gives a small yap at the sight of him in the doorway. 

"Everything alright?" Dan asks.

"Yeah, I think she just knew you were in there, it's fine." 

Phil looks worried though, Dan can tell. He's clearly anxious because she seems a bit distressed.

"I can leave my door open a bit," he suggests, just to watch the relief flood Phil's face.

At that point, he doesn't actually think it's necessary.

"Sure," Phil says, "she might like to wander about. Maybe she's a night owl like us." 

Dan just smiles and nods and leaves his door open when he goes back to bed. 

They'd discussed getting her a dog bed so she could sleep in the living room or the hall or something, but Phil liked the idea of having her curled over his feet while he slept so regardless of how spoiled Dan said he was going to make her, they hadn't bought one. 

Buffy wanders in a little later when Dan is mostly asleep. She wriggles in through the gap where his door is slightly ajar and jumps lightly on to his bed. She pokes her nose at his face until he strokes her and flops down beside him. She stays that way for a little bit, but then she's up again, jumping down and making her way to Phil's room. Possibly to put him through the same treatment. 

It goes on like that most of the night. Dan gets snatches of intermittent sleep between bouts of her coming to wake him up and around six in the morning he finally gives in and gets up. 

Phil is already in the kitchen. 

"Morning," he says. 

"Sorry," Phil says, immediately, "She wouldn't settle, I don't know what's wrong with her." 

"It's fine," Dan says, "I'm sure she's just getting used to the place. She'll be fine, don't worry."

Phil makes him a coffee without being asked and Dan doesn't get mad when there isn't enough of his cereal left to have a full-sized portion. He's too tired to care. 

"I might take her out for a walk," Phil says, "tire her out a bit." 

Dan nods over his drink and lets the steam turn to humid wetness on his cheeks. 

"Come with?" Phil says. 

Dan wants to argue that he's tired too, that he hadn't got much sleep and the idea of walking around the park seems really exhausting. He wants to tell Phil that Buffy is his dog and therefore Dan shouldn't have to walk her too.

But then he hears Phil's voice in his head saying "our dog" and smiles into his coffee cup. 

"Alright."

There aren't many other people out in the park at this time. There's someone running, and another older gentleman walking a border collie that's going grey around the mouth, but thankfully Buffy doesn't seem bothered by any of them, and they're left alone. 

There is a soft grey mist on the horizon, and they are bundled into coats and scarves. Phil has a hat on his head that was probably knitted by his aunt or something. Their breath fogs in the chilly morning air and Buffy sniffs at everything she passes, her small body wiggling on the end of the bright red lead Phil is holding. 

It's one of the retractable kind, and Phil lets it loose so she can wander ahead of them. She has a habit of wandering off a little bit before stopping to look back at them as if checking they're still there. 

"Yes we're still following you," Dan assures her, and she wanders off a little more. 

It's nice to get out in the morning. It's cold and Dan is tired, but the frigid air is bracing and he takes in a large lungful, feeling the stretch in his legs. 

"Pyjama week is a little different this time round," Dan says, remembering the week after their first tour where he'd sat on the couch the entire time. A six am walk in the cold would have been out of the question then. 

"Hm," Phil hums. "Yeah, it is."

They walk once around the park, and then up the high street a little bit to get some coffee. Dan stands outside with Buffy, the lead retracted all the way in, while Phil ducks inside to get the drinks. 

Buffy sits by his feet but she whines a little as Phil walks away. 

"He's coming back," Dan assures her and she looks up at him as if to say that he'll be in trouble if Phil doesn't, in fact, return.

When they get back to the flat, Phil tries to teach Buffy how to fetch. She loves the ball he throws and runs after it playfully up and down the lounge, but she hasn't quite got the hang of letting it go. 

"Tah," Phil says, holding out a hand. "Buffy, drop it." 

Buffy looks at him with the ball in her mouth like he's insane. 

Phil sighs a bit and says, "If you don't give it back, I can't throw it."

"I don't think you can really reason with her," Dan says from the couch. 

Phil is sat cross legged on the floor a little ways away, near the dining table, and Buffy has set her bum down in front of him. She looks over at Dan now and wags her tail. 

"Yes," Dan says, "You've got a ball, B. Very clever."

"Well if you won't give it up," Phil says, attempting to stand up and leave her to the ball she won't relinquish. 

Buffy is having none of it though, and drops the ball in favour of yapping at Phil in protest. 

"What?" Phil says, "It's hardly my fault." 

He shakes his head at her, scooping the ball back into his hand. 

Buffy follows the movement of it with her eyes and wags her tail a little more, the fluff of it swishing against the floor. 

"Alright," Phil says, holding the ball aloft, "fetch!"

Buffy races after the ball that Phil throws, only softly so that it mostly lands not that far away and then rolls towards the kitchen. 

She runs after it, catching up with it in no time but then almost tripping over it. She brings it back to Phil and sits back down in front of him, holding it between her soft puppy teeth. 

"Okay," Phil says, reaching out for it. "Drop it now." 

Buffy doesn't let go. 

Dan watches the whole scene with a wide smile and when Buffy refuses to give up the ball the second time he breaks in to loud raucous laughter. 

Buffy leaves Phil who is trying so hard to look annoyed, but the corner of his mouth tugging upward gives him away, and runs over towards Dan. She jumps up on the couch as he continues to laugh and licks at his face. 

"That," Dan says, "was hilarious."

"She'll learn," Phil protests. "She just needs more practise."

He tries to make her practise over the next few hours, but with little success. She still won't drop the ball. He tries sit and stay and a few other tricks but she either outright defies him or gets distracted when Dan inevitably laughs and comes over to investigate. 

When it's getting towards evening Phil suggests they take her out again for a quick walk, and pick up some dinner on the way back. 

"I could go for sushi," Dan suggests. 

They'd usually get it delivered, but if they have to take Buffy out anyway, they might as well pick it up. Buffy has done more in one day to get Dan out of the house than any previous exercise plans have.

It's a shorter walk this time, because she's still small and she still hasn't had a nap despite being up all night, so they don't want to push her too far. She looks relatively tired by the time they get home. 

"We could eat on my bed?" Phil suggests, "She might fall asleep then. We could watch something."

"Yeah alright," Dan says, because it isn't like it's something they haven't done before. 

He goes to the kitchen to fetch plates and Buffy seems to oscillate between them, not knowing whether to follow Dan up the stairs or Phil to his bedroom. She whines faintly.

"Don't worry, B. I'm coming back." 

She continues to make noise until he's back downstairs and she has them both in sight again. 

He walks into Phil's bedroom, Buffy on his heels and flops down on to the bed where Phil already has his legs outstretched and the food waiting for them. 

"What's her deal?" Dan says, passing Phil a plate. 

"I think she just wants to hang out with both of us all the time," Phil says. 

"You needy little shit," Dan says as Buffy hops up on the bed and sniffs inquisitively at the bag of food. Dan moves her away from it with a fond scratch behind her ear. 

"That's not for you, girl," Phil says. "You've had your dinner." 

Buffy looks up at him as he moves the food away from her as if it is the ultimate betrayal. Dan scratches her one last time until she seems satisfied. She walks unevenly on the duvet, turning in a circle a couple of time before dropping to curl up in the space between their feet. 

Dan is once again struck by how cosy and nice it all is. The room is dim, lit only by the TV that Phil has turned on, resting on the Netflix menu. It's peaceful. 

Which is probably why, with a full stomach and the TV on low in the background, they all fall asleep.


	2. Chapter Two

Dan wakes up in the morning still fully clothed on the top of Phil's bed. Phil is snoring lightly next to him and Buffy is curled up in the space between their feet. She is also breathing heavily so the sound of both of them fills the room, the TV long since turned off automatically. Dan blinks up at the ceiling and listens to the soft sound of it. He could stay here, fall back to sleep in the soothing melody of their breathing, but he shouldn't. He didn't mean to fall asleep here, he should really get up and shower, change the clothes he's slept in all night. 

"Uh," he hears as Phil wakes, "Morning." 

"Morning," Dan replies, softly. 

Phil's hair is a sight, and he screws his eyes up in a way that suggests he didn't take his contact lenses out before falling asleep. But then, if he'd had the presence of mind to do that he probably would have woken Dan up so he could go back to his own room. 

"Didn't mean to fall asleep," Dan says. 

"It's cool," Phil says, "we were shattered." 

He lifts his head and looks down at Buffy. 

"She slept," Dan says. 

"Finally."

Upon hearing this, as if knowing she was being talked about, Buffy snorts and then lifts her head up, staring at them both. Her tail raises, wagging happily as she gets to her feet and jogs up the bed to stand between them, licking their faces. 

"Morning to you too B," Dan says. 

Phil gives him a fond look and then screws up his eyes as Buffy's tongue lands in the space on the bridge of his nose between them. 

"Yes, yes let's get your breakfast," Phil says, turning to Dan, "Coffee?" 

"Hm. Thanks." 

Phil gets up, and Dan feels awkward about lazing around in his bed when he's not there so he follows. He feels an odd sense of loss, a tug in his gut like he wants to stay in this calm moment for a bit longer. 

Instead, he drags himself up, Buffy hot on his heels. They both end up in the kitchen, still wearing their clothes from the day before, and Dan puts food in Buffy's bowl while Phil makes the two of them coffee. 

It's still quiet. Phil is mostly monosyllabic before coffee on a normal day, so other than the addition of Buffy's snuffling into her food bowl, the sounds of the morning are normal. Socked feet shuffling on tiled floor, the kettle boiling, cereal bowls clinking together as Dan gets them down from the cupboard. 

They have a routine. 

"Walk?" Phil says when they've finished, back on the couch.

"Hm," Dan nods.

"I mean, are you coming with," Phil clarifies. 

"Oh, um, sure." 

And maybe this will be their routine too, Dan thinks.

After showering and changing their clothes finally, they bundle into coats. Buffy yaps at the sight of the lead, knowing what it means, and they make their way out into the crisp morning air. 

It's drizzling a bit, not enough to make it vastly unpleasant, but still enough and Buffy sneezes as a raindrop lands on her nose. She runs through puddles, muddy brown water flicking onto her coat. 

"Oh god," Phil says as she presses her nose into damp dirt and comes away with a stained snout. 

They don't stay out too long. Just once around the park, enough time for Buffy to relieve herself and for Dan to feel like his head has finally cleared and he's woken up. Walking outside in the mornings is good for him, maybe. 

They get back to their building and up to the flat, and Dan tries to stop Buffy before she runs through the house, leaving muddy footprints in her wake. 

"Get a towel, would you?" Dan says. 

But it's too late. Buffy, wet and mud-stained, shakes her entire body, flinging the discoloured water everywhere. 

It lands on mostly on the floor, which is easily mopped, but also all over Dan who splutters and exclaims as he is doused in the offending spray. 

"B!" he yells, holding his hands out ineffectually to shield himself. 

Phil is laughing, his arms wrapped around his stomach and the sound boisterous and loud. 

"Fuck off," Dan says. 

"Wait- Wait," Phil says and Dan makes a move to go grab a towel himself. 

Phil pulls out his phone, getting a very damp yet pleased Buffy, her fur sticking up but her tongue lolling out and her ears pricked up. She looks satisfied in the disasters she has wrought, nonplussed with the way Dan is stood beside her, wet and bedraggled. He's got his bottom lip stuck out in a pout and Phil takes a picture of him. 

Phil looks happy again, Dan thinks. 

"We should share some of the photos," he says. "I mean if you're… you know, ready to share your dog with the world." 

"Our dog," Phil says, almost as an afterthought.

He's clearly weighing up the pros and cons. They'd agreed to have a few days of Buffy to themselves before sharing anything, to get her settled. But she seems happy, and she'd slept fine last night, so Dan wonders whether it is time.

"We could…" Phil says. 

"I have that one from the other day," Dan says, "the video of you chucking the ball." 

"Oh," Phil says, "Don't you… we could do one of both of us?" 

Dan blinks at him. Buffy is his dog, it's his news, despite how they do everything together - and Dan is aware of how that's different to most people - so it feels wrong of him to put some kind of ownership on her. To make an announcement like it's his announcement to give. 

He just shrugs, because he doesn't know how to voice that to Phil. He could be overthinking it, blowing it all well out of proportion. Phil probably isn't putting that much stock in everything, it's just a tweet, or an instagram or whatever they decide to do. It doesn't have to be a big deal. 

Getting Buffy to pose for a selfie where she isn't licking one of them in the face is a bit of a struggle. Dan extends his arm out, because that's what they do, and Buffy seems to think that it's her job to jump for the phone in his hand. 

"Come on, girl," Phil says, "sit down." 

Dan laughs as Buffy walks over both of them. She doesn't seem to know where to go, not able to make up her mind about who's lap she wants to be on. 

"Here," Phil says, shuffling in a bit closer so that their legs are pressed together and she can sit on them both at once. 

Phil puts a hand over her back, fingers wound into the tuft of fur at her neck, stroking absently. They're both warm, the heat of them all down Dan's side and on one leg and he is still holding the camera aloft, but his head is turned towards them. 

"Take the picture," Phil reminds him, "before she gets up again." 

But Buffy looks settled now, happy to stay still and be pet, and she even looks towards the camera as Dan remembers himself and gets it together enough to click the button. 

They both point at her, wide shocked expressions on their faces. Dan let's his eyebrows raise in his typical style and Phil's mouth goes wide and happy as they show her off. 

Dan sends him the picture in a text message. 

"Everywhere?" Phil says. 

"Hm."

Dan waits in silence while Phil makes the post. He doesn't move over on the couch and Buffy sniffs experimentally at the phone in his hands before turning to Dan for attention. He's happy to comply, stroking her head and moving his fingers back and forth behind her ears with both hands. Her tail wags on Phil's lap. 

"Done," Phil announces before getting up off the couch to fetch his laptop. 

Dan's phone vibrates where it's put it down on the arm of the couch with the notification from Phil's account. Phil leaves the room, Buffy hopping down and following after him.

Dan opens the notification, a soft gasp escaping him as he reads the caption on the picture Phil has posted to instagram, cross posted to twitter and tumblr. 

_Meet the newest member of the family_

There is a little dog emoji at the end in Phil's usual fashion and Dan has to hide his smile behind his hand. 

Phil has already started replying to the flood of tweets. Most of them are incredulous, people assuming it's a troll, that it's the same as the time they'd put their friend's dog Bowie in a video under the guise of giving the people what they wanted. 

_Nope_ Phil has tweeted, _she really is our dog_.

Dan swallows. He doesn't know why that feels unsettling. 

There are a couple more responses about how old she is, what her name is, how long they've had her. He doesn't answer questions about their landlord or anything with the dreaded 'forever home' wording in it. Thank god. 

Phil comes back into the living room carrying his laptop once the replies stop. 

"Well," Dan says. 

"That was…" 

"Should keep them entertained for a while," Dan says.

Phil just smiles at him. 

It does keep them entertained. Later, Dan is scrolling through Tumblr and Twitter and there is an entire barrage of art with the tan and white puppy. She's depicted curled up between them on the couch as she often is, or running through a park. Some of it is just Phil but a lot of it is both of them. 

There is rampant speculation, of course, and even Dan can't deny that the wording Phil used is misleading this time. 

When he'd said it that first time, in the video, it had been a joke. He's just said the thing most likely to have their audience flail for a second because that's what that video had been for. To do the stuff people wanted them to do, or as close to it as possible without actually crossing any lines. 

This is different, but he can't for the life of him work out why Phil would use the same phrasing. Unless, he really was just trolling a little bit. 

But Dan remembers Phil saying _our dog_ at every turn, almost like a reflex, and his stomach turns over. 

He's playing Guild Wars on the computer in the living room when his phone rings, his mum's name appearing on the screen. He sighs, removing his headphones. Buffy looks up from her position laying on the floor halfway between where Dan is on his computer and Phil is on the couch playing with the Switch hooked up to the television. 

Phil doesn't look over as Dan answers the phone. 

"Hey Mum," he says. 

"Hello," she says in response. "How are you?" 

"Good." 

"And Phil?" 

"Also good."

There is a beat of silence wherein his mum seems to be waiting for him to say something. She never calls for no reason, so he doesn't know what she wants. 

"Everything okay?" he asks, wondering if there is bad news or something. 

Scary half-thoughts of his grandma pass through his mind in the brief second before she speaks again. 

"Everything is fine," she assures him. "I heard you got a dog." 

"What? How?" 

"Your brother saw a post about it. On the internet or something." 

Dan doesn't really know what to say, for reasons he can't quite define he's having a hard time framing the situation. 

"Um, yeah," he settles for. 

"So?" she says, clearly encouraging him to elaborate. 

"She's Phil's dog," he says. 

Dan's mum makes a happy sound down the phone and starts speaking, but Dan isn't paying attention. Instead, he watches as Phil turns on the sofa, looking over his shoulder with the game paused to regard him gently. 

"Dan?" he hears his mum saying. 

"Huh?"

"I said what's her name? What sort of dog is she?" 

"Oh, her name is Buffy. She's a west pembroke corgi puppy. Eight months old." 

Dan can recognise the fond tone his voice has taken on and Phil smiles at him, but it doesn't reach all the way to his eyes. 

"That's lovely," she says, "well, send us some pictures, won't you?" 

"Sure," Dan agrees. His mum likes dogs, it doesn't matter if it isn't his.

They talk for a bit longer, mostly because it's the done thing, though they both know she only called to ask about Buffy. Dan puts the phone down a little while later and reaches for his headphones. 

"Your mum?" Phil says, interrupting him. 

"Uh huh."

"She saw the post?" 

"Hm, she called to ask about it."

Phil doesn't respond straight away but Dan knows they aren't done. Phil still has more to say but he's just gearing up to it.

"You know…" he says, quietly. "You don't have to--" 

He stops himself, biting down gently on his lower lip as if contemplating what he's going to say. Dan can guess, but he doesn't want to interrupt, because this is probably a bit of a pivotal moment in this whole thing. 

"Be careful," Phil says. "You don't have to be so careful about, like, clarifying she's my dog."

"But she is your--"

"She's your dog too, Dan. I mean… if you want her to be."

"I…" he trails off, frowning down at his desk, at his keyboard, because he can't look Phil in the face when he's wearing such an earnest expression. "I think I'd… I mean, yeah. We…"

"Yeah," Phil nods, because he understands.

They both know how old dogs get, they both know what the implication of that is. It had always been the plan, there's no future Dan can picture where Phil isn't his best friend. Not after everything. But still… this feels different. _Their_ dog.

"I'd like that," Dan nods, finally.

"Alright," Phil says, a small smile on his mouth. This time, it reaches all the way to his eyes.

He goes to bed that night, in his own room this time, still turning it all over in his mind. 

Phil went to bed a while ago, and Buffy had been back to poke her nose into where Dan was still awake a few times, walking between them again, not settling. 

When Dan turns out the light and huddles down under his covers, she's still pacing. 

He tries to ignore it, not reacting when she jumps up onto his bed, whining softly. It breaks his heart, but he doesn't know what else to do. What does she want? 

She leaves him again and about ten minutes later Dan hears the soft rumble of movement out in the hall, and then Phil is standing in his doorway, Buffy trotting in on his heels. 

"Dan," he says in the vain of a whisper but not really all that quiet. 

"Hm?" 

"She won't settle." 

"Ignore her," Dan suggests, not looking up or moving from where he's comfortable. "She will eventually." 

"No," Phil says, and he moves in to Dan's room. Buffy walks in front of him, hopping up once again on to the bed, her ears pricked up, tail wagging. "I think…" 

Dan sighs, giving in to having to move as he sits up a bit and looks over at Phil. 

"What?" Dan asks.

"Well, she slept last night," Phil says. 

"She needs to sleep every night, Phil." Dan rubs at his face. It's about one in the morning, which isn't that late by their standards but he still feels tired. It's all the early morning exercise. 

"No," Phil says. His hands are tugging on the bottom of his t-shirt but he seems to realise and instead takes a short step forward to pet at Buffy's head where she's stood on Dan's bed, looking at them both. "I mean, when we were--" 

He stops himself. Dan doesn't get it at first, it takes a moment for it to sink in, but it does. 

"Oh." 

"She just likes to have us both nearby, I think," Phil says. 

"So?" Dan says, "she has to get used to it." 

Phil nods, like he agrees, but his brow is furled into a frown. "I know, I know. But… maybe just one more night?" 

Dan chews on his bottom lip for a second. "You want to, what? Sleep here?" 

"Or my room," Phil says, "whichever you prefer." 

Dan levels him with a contemplative stare. He's tired, he wants to go to sleep. 

"Fine," he says, pulling back the cover on the opposite side of the bed. "Whatever." 

It's weird. It doesn't escape him how weird it is, but they've never professed to be normal. Phil climbs in the other side of the bed, which is big enough that Dan can sort of pretend he isn't there if he wants to, and Buffy instantly lays down in the space between their feet. 

She's a comfortable weight. 

"Your dog is so clingy," Dan says, putting his head back down on the pillow.

"Our dog," Phil says, and it's the last thing Dan hears before the room falls silent save for the sound of their breathing. 

It's still again, quiet and hushed, Buffy's soft snuffle and Phil's slightly raspier half-snore. It's almost melodic, soft and peaceful, and Dan falls asleep just listening.


	3. Chapter Three

Dan wakes up to a wet sensation on his cheek and a weight on his chest. 

"Ugh," he says, groaning his eyes open to see Buffy up close and out of focus. "Morning, B." 

He's warm, perhaps too warm. Buffy's ears prick up and her tail is wagging behind her but she walks down off his chest as if telling him that it is time to get up, to feed her, to take her out. 

"Yeah," he says, agreeing, "Alright." 

It's then he notices the weight on his chest is not fully gone despite her having walked away. As his mind clears he realises, in a way that is slightly shocking, that Phil seems to have shuffled closer in the night and thrown an arm across him. He's thankful he is wearing a shirt, that it's the colder end of the year, or this might be really awkward.

It hasn't happened before. 

Phil's head is also close to his shoulder, his arm thrown over Dan in what looks like a casual way, and he is snoring faintly into the very edge of Dan's pillow. His face is smushed up in the grey jersey. 

"Oh," Dan says, mostly to himself. 

He could move, that would be the sensible thing to do. He has to, really, to feed Buffy and get himself some coffee and most importantly, to put an end to this before Phil wakes up because there's no reason to continue it. Yet he's comfortable, rested, more relaxed than he's been in quite some time. It's warm under here, with Phil's body heat so close, and he likes the feeling of the arm across his waist.

They're not _cuddling_. Dan isn't holding Phil back and Phil isn't snuggled in close, he just has his arm flung out, as if Dan is a stray pillow and it is something he's done casually, without thinking. Dan is still really comfortable though. 

He spends too long looking at Phil's head on his pillow, at the mess of his hair fanned out of his forehead, and Buffy doesn't take kindly to being ignored. She yaps, a short sharp sound that rouses Phil from his sleep. 

"Wha--?" Phil says, eloquently.

"Hi," Dan says, his voice low and rough with sleep. 

"Time is it?" Phil asks.

Dan shifts to collect his phone from the bedside table where it is charging and it's only at that moment Phil realises where his arm is. He uses Dan's movements as an excuse to retract his arm. He clears his throat, rolling to lay flat against his pillow, and ignore the situation. 

Buffy yaps again at still being ignored and creeps across the bed to sniff at Phil. 

"Morning Buffy," Phil says. 

"It's nine," Dan says. "We slept in."

Phil is rubbing behind Buffy's ears and she is moving her head, trying to lick at his hand. 

"She slept too," Phil says, but he doesn't look over at Dan. 

Dan thinks he's probably making some sort of point, but he can't read his facial expression when it's trained on the dog, so he can't be sure. 

"Breakfast time," Phil says, again, mostly to Buffy, and he swings his legs out of the bed. 

He's up and out of the room before Dan can conjure a response and Dan doesn't really know what to say. He lingers in the warmth of their sheets until Buffy comes back into the room, her fluffy tail swiping against the door in a susurrant sound that distracts him. 

She looks up at him expectantly, head cocked to the side. 

"Yeah," he says to her, "I'm coming."

They still have their new routine. He shakes off the strangeness of the morning, falling into his role of making cereal while Phil makes coffee and fills Buffy's bowl, and then Dan turns the TV on and they sit on the couch with Buffy between them. 

When their bowls are emptied and stacked in the dishwasher, Dan can go for a shower and finally, blissfully, have a moment to think. He thinks about the sensation of Phil's arm over his waist, how strange it is that he was comfortable. 

By the time he's rubbing a towel over his curls and squeezing them between his hands to re-shape them, he concludes that it's been way too long since he had a good, proper cuddle. And that is all it is. 

When he hears Phil moving around again he automatically gravitates towards the hallway, to his shoes, to Buffy's lead. They don't say anything, they shrug into coats and wander out onto the street. 

They walk Buffy around the park, taking the same route they always do. Dan is amazed at how they've fallen in to this routine, how Phil doesn't need to ask him to come along any more. They could take it in turns to walk her, they could have a lie-in while the other did the task, but they don't. They walk together side by side, a slow stroll around a park while Buffy sniffs at everything they pass. 

She looks back occasionally to see that they are keeping up, despite the fact that she's on a lead, and they smile at her and say they are. 

There hasn't been anyone around before, because they're usually out earlier than they are today. But this morning there are joggers and people on bikes and commuters in suits. Buffy wants to say hello to all of them. 

Phil retracts the lead a little bit and makes her walk next to them. 

Dan wonders what picture they paint to everyone who looks at them.

They grab coffee on the way back and Dan takes a picture of Buffy sniffing at the top of it with a happy expression. 

_Buffy's first PSL_ Dan writes as he posts it to his Instagram story. It seems like a good way for him to go about it. Casual, no grand statements of ownership over her, just a casual joke about her being a basic bitch. 

Dan doesn't need to overthink these things so much. 

"Still filming?" Phil asks, because today is the day they decided they'd film a gaming video. 

"Hm," Dan hums, sliding his feet out of his shoes and trying to avoid tripping as Buffy sniffs eagerly around his feet. "You're a menace."

When he stands upright Phil is looking at him with a soft fond expression, but he clears his throat and looks away when Dan catches him. 

Filming, it turns out, is a lot more difficult than they intend it to be. No sooner are they settled into their desk chairs and have turned the camera on but they hear a high pitched whine coming from behind the closed door. 

"Hello Dan and Phil Games-" _whine._

Phil looks over at Dan just as the scrambling of dog claws on wooden flooring starts. 

"Let her in?" Dan says.

"She could sit on the sofa?" Phil says. "Are you sure--"

"Oh my god," Dan says, smiling. "I just had the best idea." 

"What?" 

"Let Buffy in," Dan says, "we're going to introduce her to the world properly." 

Phil shoots him a confused looks as Dan navigates away from the game they were going to play and in to Google. 

Phil lets Buffy in and it takes him a few minutes to get her to settle, excited as she is at being finally allowed back with them after such a brief separation. 

Eventually she curls up on the centre of the couch, just visible in shot between them if they lean to the outside of the frame. 

"This is the only time people are going to want us to lean away from each other," Phil notes. 

Dan looks up at him and laughs, wondering whether because the camera is still rolling, Phil will let him keep that in the edit. In fact, they should definitely keep the interrupted intro too. 

"Dog content is far more important than us two rats," Dan says. 

Phil finally sits back in his chair and sees what Dan has pulled up on the screen. 

"You can't be serious." 

Dan grins. 

"Dogz?"

"Yeah, it's this really old… do you remember it?" 

"Yes," says Phil, amused, "I remember it." 

"We can intro Buffy and play a lame dog simulator game from one million years ago. It'll be great." 

"Alright," Phil agrees, nodding profusely. 

The video ends up being hilarious. 

It starts with Phil's aborted intro, Buffy's whine audible. Jump cut. Phil settling her on the couch. Another cut and Phil lets him keep the comment about them leaning away from each other. Dan doesn't miss the look on his face as he looks up at Phil and knows it's destined to be captured as a gif hundreds of times. Strangely though, he doesn't care. 

Another jump and Phil is back in his chair, they are indeed leaning out so that the ball of tan and white fur is visible between them.

"Buffy wants to be on the gaming channel too," Dan says. 

"Hopefully she'll stay over there," Phil says, and Buffy picks her head up to look at him, ears tall and pointy and her nose twitching, head cocked to the side.

"You want to try your intro again?" Dan says. 

"Hello Dan and Phil and Buffy games... Dogs," Phil says and Dan's laughter causes Buffy to jump off the sofa to investigate what is so loud.

It's a bit of a mess, but it's funny. They play the game, mocking it more than anything. Dan calls Phil old approximately six times and Phil tells a story of playing the game as a kid and begging his parents for a dog. They look over at Buffy too many times. 

Then do end up drifting closer. Mostly because they need the keyboard and the mouse to play but also because that's just how they do these things. They press their shoulders together and obscure the sofa behind them. 

About ten minutes in Dan is suddenly jumpscared by Buffy wriggling in between them and forcing her head up from underneath the desk. 

"That shit me up," he says, holding his chest dramatically. 

Buffy tries to climb on his lap to see what's wrong. 

She ends up standing between them, front legs on Phil's knee and her back ones on Dan's, her tummy stretched precariously over the arms of the desk chairs. Her tail is wagging and Dan splutters as it hits him in the face while he tries to do the end screen. 

"Click on Buffy's nose to watch our last video," Phil says, "Our channels are the bubbles floating in her fur, don't forget to give the video a thumbs up or Buffy will be sad…"

"Emotional blackmail," Dan comments. 

"Gooood bye," Phil reaches over Buffy and places his hand over the lens. 

It's a good video.

They manage to get it edited by the time the day is finished, Buffy once again sat at their feet as they work. They'll post it tomorrow but for now the evening is drawing in, they've had their dinner, and they need to walk Buffy one more time before they turn in. 

It's mostly dark. It gets dark earlier at this time of year, and the restaurant next to their apartment building is filled with warm lighting and the chatter of people through the dark. Buffy tries to scamper off in their direction but Phil tugs on the lead to correct her course. 

"Meeting tomorrow," Phil says as they crest the top of the small slope at the entrance to the park.

"Yup."

"Will she be okay by herself do you think?" 

Dan has his coat zipped up all the way over his chin so that when he looks over at Phil the shape of his mouth is hidden. He smiles without trying to hide it. 

"She'll be fine," he says. "We won't be long."

He thinks maybe she won't be fine, not totally, but it will be okay. She'll be a little bit whiney and upset but they'll leave her food and toys and hopefully she'll eventually have a nap and be there to greet them when they get in. 

Eventually she'll be okay with all manner of things. She'll settle. And then Phil can stop crawling into his bed.

Dan doesn't want to think about why that makes him a little sad. 

They do a loop of the park. It's getting colder and so they steer their way home, breath coming in clouds of mist from their mouths and Buffy trotting happily along at their feet. 

Back in the flat, they kick off their shoes and get ready to settle in for the evening. Dan changes into his pyjamas and brushes his teeth in the ensuite bathroom connected to his room and sits down on his bed, scrolling through his phone. 

He decides to post a picture of Phil and Buffy to his instagram story. For no reason at all except he's looking through photos from the day and he'd found it funny. It's in the gaming room, Buffy jumping up on to Phil's lap and Phil looking delighted yet startled. 

_Special guest in a gaming viddy tomorrow_ he types as a caption.

"You promo'd the vid?" Phil says from his doorway five minutes later.

Dan puts his phone down as he feels a solid weight jump onto the bed by his feet. 

"Hey B," he says and she waddles up the bed towards him. He scratches behind her ears as and looks over to the doorway where Phil is stood, hesitant, as if he isn't sure whether he can come in. "yeah, I did. It's edited so I thought you know, why not?"

Phil nods, smiling, but it looks tight, like he's nervous of something.

"You okay?" Dan asks him.

"Can I--" Phil says, before stopping himself.

"Sure," Dan hears himself replying. 

He's not sure it really is a good idea. It certainly isn't a normal approach to getting a dog settled into a new home.

They need to get Buffy used to it and sure, it'd take a few sleepless nights but eventually she'd settle, right? Eventually she'd sleep on Phil's bed and be happy with Dan being in the other room. 

Or maybe another apartment, one day. 

Dan swallows and blinks against the flood of sour anticipation that rises in his throat. He hates thinking about moving out and things changing. He's comfortable where he is. He doesn't like change. 

It's easier to pretend that this a suitable option, that they can carry on like this until one or both of them decides to do something different. He doesn't comment on how they should probably teach Buffy to deal with nights alone, he doesn't ask whether Phil finds all of this as strange as he does, whether his heart beats wildly as he comes into the room.

Instead, he pulls back the duvet on the other side of the bed, just to stop thinking about it.


	4. Chapter Four

Dan comes to slowly. It's like wading through thick treacle as he drags his eyes open, each of his muscles leaden and stiff, but comfortable. He doesn't want to wake up, he wants to stay in the cocoon of soft blankets. He is warm, heat radiating down his back and he burrows closer to it, feeling the firm press of something around his waist. 

It's the pleasant huff of breath in his ear that finally wakes him properly. 

He's on his side, his back pressed against Phil's side where Phil is sleeping face down in the pillow on his side of the bed, the leg nearest to him bent up into the space behind Dan's knees. His arm is thrown out, haphazardly strewn over Dan's waist. As Dan shifts, his brain shaking off the last vestiges of sleep, Phil's elbow twitches, tightening his grip as if to keep Dan near. 

And Dan lets it happen. 

He doesn't immediately move away, or make any movement to wake Phil up. Instead he basks in the comfort, in the warm press of him. He misses cuddling. He likes waking up to the touch of someone near, to know that the thing that makes them comfortable in sleep is to hold him close. 

He knows it's unintentional, that Phil doesn't mean to be holding Dan close, but he pretends just for a moment that there is someone that wants to. That this is something he gets to have permanently instead of just until they decide to quit whatever strange arrangement they've come to for Buffy. Or until Phil stops unconsciously holding him in his sleep. 

He doesn't necessarily pretend it's Phil, he just pretends it's someone. 

He sighs, a soft huff sound that makes a faint 'ah' noise on the way out. He feels Buffy stir at his feet. 

She gets to her feet and Dan feels the indent of all four of them as she makes her way up the duvet. He shifts, sneaking a look over his shoulder as Buffy walks towards him, determined, not caring that she is now walking across Phil's back. 

"Uhh," Phil groans, retracting his arm and pushing his face further into the pillow. 

"Buffy," Dan says, fondly, "what are you doing?" 

He turns flat on his back and pats the flat of his chest to urge Buffy over to him. She steps forward with her front paws before dropping to lay across them, her head pillowed on Dan's chest, her hind legs and the swish of her tail across the bottom of Phil's back. 

Phil lifts his head and looks over at them both. 

"Do I have to get up?" he asks, and his voice sounds scratchy with sleep. 

"No," Dan concedes, "I can take her out."

"S'fine," Phil mumbles, still face down in the pillow, his hair pushed up at a ridiculous angle. "We've got the accountant." 

"Oh," Dan says, "Yeah, we do. Too bad mate, time to get up."

Phil groans again and reaches out an arm for his glasses where they're sat on the bedside table. 

They fit there, Dan thinks. The table on that side doesn't usually have much on it, but oddly Phil's glasses look like they belong on the corner of it.

"Shift, Buff," Phil says, wiggling his hips to jostle Buffy where she is stretched out over him. The movement causes him to bump into Dan and he realises once again how close they are, in the centre of the bed instead of over on their respective sides. 

Phil seems to notice too and clears his throat before rolling over to sit up, his glasses now on his face, hair a mess, and Buffy moving to give him a disgruntled look. 

For a moment, Dan thinks it might be nice to go get coffee and bring it back here. Phil could draw his knees up and read the news on his phone while the steam from the mug fogged up his lenses, and Dan could sit beside him, leaning against the wrinkles in his t-shirt and Phil could put his arm back around him. Purposefully this time. They could sit, for a lazy morning of breakfast in bed, sharing the headlines on reddit, or replies to their tweets. 

Dan shakes his head to push the image away. He has got to get up, he doesn't know where those images came from, unbidden and unwanted. 

Dan twists, bringing his feet to the floor and Phil looks startled by the sudden movement, Buffy scrambling to follow him. 

"Coffee," Dan says, leaving the room without any further explanation. 

What is he doing? 

He'd lingered in the bed, let Phil cuddle him, and then he'd imagined lazy cuddled up mornings in bed beside Phil. This is getting to him, this bed sharing thing. It's making him miss being with someone, perhaps he should talk to Phil, let him know that they shouldn't do this, if only because Dan is clearly touch-starved and making Phil the object of his abstract daydreams is really pathetic. It's not fair to Phil to make him a substitute, just because Dan can't hold down a relationship. 

Not that he's wanted to for quite a while. 

He has tried, but it's never seemed important. He doesn't get that excited rush he used to when he was younger, his stomach doesn't flip over, he isn't hanging off their every word. That's what it's supposed to be like, right? 

Maybe he's just holding out for something that doesn't exist. Maybe it isn't like that as an adult. 

He makes himself get lost in the routine rather than ruminating on it any more. He makes coffee and Phil joins him and there is cereal on the couch and an episode of a show they've been watching and his thoughts slide away, fading into the narrative of the story on the television and Dan forgets, slips out of it like an old coat. 

They get dressed and take Buffy around the park once so she can sniff at the bushes and benches and before Dan knows it, it's time to go to their meeting. 

"Be good Buffy, okay?" Phil says, reaching down to pat her on the head. 

"We'll be back soon," Dan says. 

Buffy just wags her tail at them. They're stood at their front door in their coats and their shoes and she must think they're going on another walk. 

"Stay," Phil says, and turns the door handle, cracking it open a little way. 

Dan shuffles past, squeezing in to the gap. 

Buffy takes a few steps forward as if to follow them, but Phil puts a hand out. 

"No," he says, sliding his voice around the word so that he sounds reproaching. "Stay." 

Out in the hall, the door clicking shut behind them, Dan hears Buffy whine loudly. 

"Oh god," Phil says. 

Dan looks at him, his bottom lip is caught between his teeth and his brows are furrowed. 

"It'll be okay," he reassures him, reaching out with the intention of patting him encouragingly on the arm. What he ends up doing is wrapping his fingers delicately around his bicep and squeezing gently. 

"She sounds so sad," he says as Buffy makes a loud sharp bark from behind the door. 

"She has to learn though," Dan says, "and we'll only be like two hours." 

"Alright," Phil nods, "if you say so." 

Dan squeezes his arm once more for good measure and then drops his hand. He's not sure if it helps. 

They're a little longer than two hours, though not by much, but Phil's face still looks pinched and expectant as they approach their front door. 

"Stop worrying," Dan says. 

"I know," Phil nods, "I'll be better once I'm inside." 

Unfortunately, once they get inside, things aren't better. 

They are greeted by their usual hallway, and the skittering of dog claws on wooden flooring and the excited barks of a corgi puppy clearly glad to see her owners return, but also by a sea of white covering the entire floor. 

"What the fuck?" Dan says, his voice a little too loud as Buffy barrels into his knees, knocking him backwards half a step as she jumps and tries to press herself as close to him as she can get before changing tacts and doing the same to Phil. 

"Is that… toilet roll?" Phil says, reaching down to fuss at Buffy even though it's only making the situation worse. 

"How the hell did she--" 

Dan walks off, sticking his head into his bedroom door which is held ajar. The sea of white tissue continues at his feet, sliding under his shoes. It trails into the en suite bathroom where what was once a sealed package of 12 rolls usually stacked next to the sink is now torn and shredded into strips. 

It looks like it exploded, a cloud of white on white as it spills up and over, coating the floor where trails of it criss-cross, teeth marks visible in nearly every piece. 

He spots one roll that's mostly intact, under a mountainous pile of tissue, and he starts laughing. 

"She got into the… oh my god." 

Phil follows him in, a smile on his face half-incredulous half-shock as he works out what has happened. Buffy lets out an excited yap, head tilted up to Phil, as if to say 'look dad, look what I did'. 

"You absolute terror," Dan says and he knows he should be mad. He knows that his voice shouldn't sound as fond as it does and he shouldn't be laughing, it will only encourage her, but he meets Phil's eyes over the chaos surrounding their feet and the laugh comes out loud and raucous. 

"What are we even going to do with it all?" Phil says. 

"Salvage what we can," Dan shrugs, "And then... Uhh, I guess we just… chuck it?" 

"If we had a hamster we could use it as bedding," Phil says. 

Dan levels him with a look that he hopes expresses how irritated he is, and not how charming he finds Phil's endless pursuit of animals to care for. 

"You got a dog," Dan says, "you are not having a hamster. Be happy with your absolute nightmare of a dog that is destroying our house." 

"Our dog," Phil says, mostly distracted by Buffy as she nudges at his legs, clearly unsatisfied with the amount of attention she is getting. 

Dan rolls his eyes to cover the smile and bends down to start picking up the tissue. 

It takes a solid half hour for them to clear it all up and shove it into a bin liner. There are a few rolls that are still mostly whole and Dan stacks them back in the bathroom, very careful to close the door behind him.

"You have toys," he says to Buffy who has watched the clean up proceedings with an air of interest and whimsy, as if she didn't know why on earth they would want to clear up the masterpiece she spent two hours creating for them. "Like, so many toys, you are the most spoilt dog in the history of dogs. Why do you have to play with toilet paper?" 

Buffy just runs at him and licks his face where he's sat on the floor tying up the top of the black bag. 

"Are you helping?" Dan shouts to Phil, who is nowhere to be seen. 

"Yes," Phil shouts back, though it is very obvious he isn't helping at all anymore. 

Dan stick his head into Phil's room to see him sat on his bed and he jumps at being caught. 

"Right," he says, the finger of his free hand pointing directly at him, "you're taking this out." 

He heaves the bin liner full of toilet tissue up onto Phil's bed and puts it down next to him. Buffy follows the movement, jumping up onto the bed to sniff at it. _Are you giving dad a present?_ she seems to say, _I approve._

"What? Why?"

"Because," Dan says, his mouth stretching into a smile without him really intending it to, "I've done everything else, you can do this bit." 

He avoids pointing out that Buffy is Phil's dog, and it is therefore Phil's job to clear up after her mad rampage through tissue, because he's pretty sure Phil would respond with 'our dog' and he doesn't know how to deal with that when Phil is looking directly at him. 

"Besides," Dan continues, "I have my liveshow." 

"That's not for hours," Phil protests. 

"And therefore I have lots to do," Dan says, "got to be prepared like a true professional." 

Phil doesn't look impressed. Dan hasn't ever been prepared for a liveshow so far in his career and he isn't about to start now. Aside from a list of topics on his desktop, he doesn't really bother much with structuring anything he talks about. 

"Ugh," Phil groans, knowing that he really doesn't have a leg to stand on. He's not buying Dan's excuses about needing to prepare for the liveshow, but he'll take the bin out anyway because Dan did most of the cleaning up and Phil isn't a complete monster. 

Buffy jumps down and tries to follow him when Phil finally leaves the flat. 

"No, B, come on," Dan says, "Let's go practise fetching the ball." 

Buffy looks a little distressed and whines at the door where Phil has disappeared but she soon follows after Dan when he turns to walk up the stairs. It's better than being left completely alone. 

She's still a bit confused by how fetch works. 

She doesn't bring the ball back to him, and when she does she doesn't relinquish it without Dan tugging on it. But she likes him throwing it a short way across their living room when he finally does get his hands on it. 

Phil comes back and they settle into their evening. Phil sorts out their video ready to be uploaded after Dan's liveshow and rest of the day winds down in to something placid and comforting.

It hasn't been like this in a while. The tour had been frantic and the run up to the tour not much better. Dan had completely lost it for a while and Phil had to pick up the slack. So moments like this, when the world is still and Buffy is breathing steadily between them, they feel golden. 

Things aren't calm this side of the tour either. They keep saying it's pyjama week but the truth is they both have emails to answer, and plans to make. There are things they need to do which means that even though they are home, and the little bubble of their world seems like walks in the park and movies on the sofa, work still continues. Life is moving on at pace, and Dan is beginning to feel a little tired of it again. A little overwhelmed.

"I don't wanna get up and do a live show," Dan says. 

"Don't then," Phil says. 

Dan is surprised by the easy way that Phil is letting him off the hook. He's usually the first one to stick by their responsibilities and deny Dan any chance to procrastinate the things that they've promised their audience. 

"I already tweeted it," Dan points out. 

Phil just nods at him, scrolling down on his laptop screen, clearly distracted. 

"You know..." Dan says, turning his body on the couch, one leg hitched up. 

Buffy shifts at the movement, obviously thinking there is something exciting happening. Dan reaches out and strokes at her letting her walk directly onto his lap with her front paws. He has to crane his neck to avoid the excited licks she aims at his face but eventually she settles back down and is happy to stand looking between them both. 

"What?" Phil says, finally looking up at him. He's right to sound suspicious. 

"I wouldn't have to move and stuff if we just did the liveshow here." 

"You want me to move?" 

Dan shrugs. "I kind of mean that you should just do the liveshow with me. Buffy too."

He's trying to sound nonchalant, but it's a bit of a big deal. They haven't really discussed how much Buffy is going to feature in their content and they've already put her in the gaming video that's being uploaded tonight. He doesn't want to commodify Phil's dog, but on the other hand he kind of wants to show her off a bit. 

Which is a weird thought, because she isn't his to show off. 

"That's a good idea," Phil says, surprising him with how enthusiastic he sounds. "Do you want to do a liveshow?"

He's talking to Buffy, who promptly turns around and subjects Phil to the same face-licking torture she's attempted with Dan. Phil's voice is higher pitched and fond, the soft cute voice he uses for anything small and cute. Dan won't ever get used to how happy he sounds. He really has always wanted a dog. 

And now they have one. 

"She's in," Phil announces. 

Setting up the live show is the same as always, but Dan doesn't have to move from the lazy, comfy place on the couch. They use Phil's laptop, because his camera is better, but Dan logs in to his own account.

When they finally go live, the chat explodes with 'OMG A DOG' and 'BUFFY!!11'. 

"It's all about the dog," Dan says, "we're irrelevant now."

He turns to look at Buffy who in turn is looking at the screen and the image of themselves reflected back. She cocks her head to the side and Dan gets it. She's cute, she deserves the attention. 

"Not even bothered about surprise Amazingphil," Dan teases, looking in to the tiny webcam lens. "Anyway. Hello, hi, welcome to the live show. I've brought some guests… totally not because I'm too lazy to entertain everyone myself and want to distract you all with dog content."

Phil laughs. "Hello!" he says, and then lifts Buffy's front paw to wave, "Buffy says hi too."

"Do you want to explain what Buffy is doing here, Phil?" 

Phil looks at him out of the corner of his eye and gives him a look Dan expected for making Phil do the explaining. 

"Dan was too lazy to get up and go to his computer do to a liveshow. Buffy and I are just sitting on the couch." 

"I mean…" Dan says, "I'd try to defend myself but honestly? It's the truth." 

"For anyone that doesn't know," Phil continues, actually explaining her presence now that he's shamed Dan for his laziness. Not that Phil hadn't seemed just as excited to show Buffy off to the world anyway. "This is Buffy, she's our new dog."

Dan feels the corners of his mouth tip up and so he forces them into a pout, raises his eyebrows, turns his head away from the camera. There's no way for him to respond other than to ignore the fact that Phil has just said 'our dog' in front of everyone watching, and Dan doesn't really know what to do with that. 

He sees some of that in the chat, scrolling quickly, an avalanche of 'OUR dog' and 'omg thats so cute askfhjsalfj'. 

Phil is telling them some basic facts like her breed and how old she is and where they got her. Dan is nodding, and finds he has reached out to pet at her where she is stood mostly on Phil's lap. 

They talk about being back home after tour, about Buffy, about the video that's going up after they've finished the liveshow. After that they answer questions about spooky week, which is another thing they have to do soon that they haven't yet planned for despite how assured they sound, and then it's time to go. It's quick, but he feels like he's allowed to make it shorter when Phil is with him. He doesn't have to ramble for an hour about something pseudo-deep, or get into his serious thoughts about music and pop culture. He can just ramble for half an hour, tell the story of Buffy waiting for Phil outside of Starbucks like she was afraid he was going to run away, and then say goodbye. 

It's still his job, it's still work, but it feels less taxing than it does by himself, less _important_. Which, after the tour and quick flurry that has been the last two years, he could kind of do with. 

He knows he'll have to find a creative outlet soon, something to express the stuff building in his head, but for now he's happy with this. To let the rest of it come when it's ready, rather than feeling pressed to do anything about it just for the sake of it.

"Are you okay?" Phil asks him, after. 

"Yeah… why wouldn't I be?" 

"Dunno," Phil shrugs. Dan loves that he knows when Phil is trying to seem casual. He hasn't got the heart to tell Phil that it doesn't really work. Not when it comes to Dan. "You just seem off."

"It's been a busy day," Dan says. "I'm fine."

He is fine. He can feel a bit of restlessness under his skin, like he's forgotten to tell Phil something. Or like he's trying to find the words to use to tell him, but can't for the life of him remember what it is. 

"Alright," Phil says. 

Buffy stands up from where she'd had her head down on Phil's knee and walks over to him. She has no concept of where she is putting her feet and puts them down indiscriminately as she walks, caring not for the discomfort she causes as she catches Phil right on the crotch with her hind leg. 

"Ow," Phil complains, and Dan laughs at him a bit before rubbing Buffy behind the ear. 

An hour later and even though it's earlier than he usually would, Dan is yawning. 

"Tired?" Phil says. 

"Hmm. I keep having to get up early because of your dog." 

Phil doesn't _say_ Our Dog, but Dan hears it anyway with the way Phil looks at him. 

"Do you want to go to bed?" Phil asks. 

"Yeah," Dan nods, looking back over at the TV and the show they're attempting to watch. "I think so. I'm not paying attention to this anyway." 

Dan stands, startled when Phil follows behind him, turning off the screen and plunging the room into darkness. Dan stops, turning on the spot so that he comes face to face with Phil in the gloom. 

"Argh," Phil says, stopping just short of colliding with him. Buffy is at their ankles, perfectly capable of seeing in the low light, padding off in the direction of the stairs ahead of them, looking back only briefly to see if they are going to catch up.

"What are you doing?" Dan says. His voice has dropped to a whisper, not needing any volume to be heard with how close Phil is standing. 

He can see the bridge of Phil's nose glinting in the orange glow of the street lights coming around the window blinds. He picks out of the rise of Phil's cheekbone, the curve of his mouth as he replies. 

"Coming to bed," Phil says, his face twisting in to an expression that Dan can't see properly. 

"Oh."

Dan wants to shrug that away, to act like Phil going to bed just because Dan is going to is a perfectly normal occurrence. But it isn't. 

Buffy gives a little yap behind them as if to tell them to hurry up and Dan is saved from having to articulate just how strange it makes him feel to be going off to bed with Phil on his heels. To be, effectively, leading him there. 

At the bottom of the stairs Phil seems to remember something and turns back the way they've come. Dan shakes his head and refrains from asking him what he's doing. His voice might sound strange if he tried. 

Dan is looking at himself in the mirror, under the white glare of his ensuite bathroom lights. He's got his toothbrush in his mouth and foam is collecting in the corners between his lips. He looks odd. His face is the same as it always is but something is wrong. He can't quite place it, but something about the person looking back at him seems changed from what he's used to. 

"You look deep in thought." 

Dan turns, minty foam still bubbling up in his mouth. "Phmm?" he mumbles around his toothbrush. 

"Move over," Phil says, bumping him with his hip. 

Dan stares at him as Phil squeezes toothpaste onto his own toothbrush and sets about brushing. It reminds him of years ago, standing side by side with Phil at a sink in the Manchester flat. Back when they'd had one bathroom and no sense of boundaries at all. Phil would elbow him out of the way, they'd fight over space and whether to keep the tap running while they brushed. Phil liked to leave it on, Dan didn't. 

Then the London flat, where they still only had one bathroom but so much more stuff built up between them that meant they didn't brush their teeth side by side anymore. Phil didn't bump him with his hip, didn't jostle him in the tiny space. Dan didn't have to keep the tap on and for the first few months he'd kind of missed the sound. 

Now they have four bathrooms and it feels like more and more boundaries are being broken every day. Phil has left the tap running and Dan looks at him in the mirror and wonders if this is what has made him look like he's changed. 

Buffy stands behind them at the door and looks on. Dan catches Phil's eyes in the mirror and Phil tries to grin at him around his own mouthful of white suds. Dan leans over and spits in the sink, laughing as he rinses his mouth out and firmly, deliberately, turns off the tap. 

Phil is still grinning when he looks up. 

They get into bed. There's no hesitation and they don't discuss it, because Dan thinks they both know what the answer would be anyway. They lay on their respective sides of the bed and Dan leans over to turn off the light while Buffy settles herself down in the space between their feet. 

"Goodnight Dan," Phil says. 

"Yeah, night Phil," Dan whispers back.

He's still wondering if he should say something about how weird all of this is, how crazy it is to have this as a solution to an anxious pet. He wants to question it, to ask Phil precisely what he's playing at crawling into his bed like it's no big deal. He wants to demand Phil tell him precisely what had been going through his head when he has fetched his toothbrush from the bathroom upstairs and brought it down here deliberately. He wants to know if Phil thought of brushing their teeth in Manchester too, if he ever missed Dan turning the tap off. If he could, he'd ask Phil why he left his toothbrush in Dan's bathroom now, right next to Dan's toothbrush in the little black cup. But he also doesn't want to ask anything at all. He wants to lay in the dark with the weight of Buffy on his feet and the soft sound of Phil's breathing lulling him to sleep. So he doesn't.


	5. Chapter Five

Dan is surprised at how quickly they fall into a routine, and how easily he lets it happen. He thinks about addressing the issue every day over the following week or so. He thinks about turning to Phil before they go to bed, or when they're walking Buffy through the park in the mornings. He thinks about it as they film the spooky week videos, or as Buffy finally begins to learn to drop the ball when playing fetch. But he doesn't. 

He doesn't because he doesn't know where to start, and because the idea of doing so makes him feel twisted up and confused about how he will broach the subject. So what if it isn't something most people would understand, a rather unconventional way for them to deal with Buffy's idiosyncrasies. They're busy, so busy planning the release of the tour movie and merch and spooky week that Dan looks up one day and realises it's already Halloween. 

"D'you think Buffy will let me put these on her?" Phil says, turning his laptop so Dan can see the dog-sized devil horns. 

"Are you really asking me?" Dan says. "You're going to buy them anyway."

Phil gives him one of those grins that makes his eyes crinkle and Dan picks up the cloud cushion from the couch next to him and chucks it at him. 

"You idiot," he says, with absolutely no bite in his voice. 

Phil ducks his head out of the path of the flying cushion and carries on grinning. 

He buys the horns. Also a huge bucket in the shape of a skull and enough sweets and mini chocolate bars to fill it twice over. 

"It's Halloween," Phil says when Dan points out that he's gone a little overboard. 

Dan just rolls his eyes and helps him empty the sweets in to the bucket. After, he holds Buffy steady while Phil slips the horns on to her head. She barely makes a fuss, except to wag her tail and look at them with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

"Scary doggo," Phil says, lifting his phone to take a picture of her. 

Dan is in the shot too, looking down at her with what he is sure is a fond expression. He should probably feel more cautious about it when he sees that Phil has switched to instagram and means to post it. But he doesn't. 

"Caption?" Dan asks. 

"Umm, I don't know," Phil says. 

"Do it as a story?" Dan suggests. 

Phil nods and clicks around on his phone screen, obviously switching to the correct window to post it as a story instead. Not only does it mean Phil doesn't have to think of a caption, but it also makes Dan feel less uncomfortable at the thought of Phil sharing a fond moment permanently on his feed. 

He knows their stories don't really disappear, he knows that once it's out there it's out there forever, but something feels different about Phil showcasing him on his profile for all to see. Like it's yet another boundary wearing away that they haven't talked about.

"Are we still doing the video?" Phil says, rousing Dan from his thoughts. 

"Huh? Oh. Yeah." 

They've decided to do a pumpkin carving video for halloween this year. Baking they can do at Christmas. With everything else going on it just seems easier, especially considering they probably aren't going to be able to do Gamingmas what with one thing and another.

"What's with you today?" Phil says, "You've been strange since this morning." 

Dan's eyes dart to meet Phil's, and Phil stares back. He thinks back to that morning, of lingering in the heat of his bed, Phil crammed in next to him, breathing steadily on the dip of his collarbone where his t-shirt's over stretched collar had fallen away. He'd let himself stay there, enjoying the placid way Phil's breathing makes him feel, how the warmth of his body was becoming more familiar by the day. 

He shouldn't have, he knows that, but Phil's shampoo was wafting into his nostrils, fruity and deep and Dan knows that the shower in his ensuite had smelt like that too. That Phil's toothbrush is still in the little pot on the sink. Phil has invaded his space, right up to the point of having rolled over close to him in his sleep, and all Dan has had a mind to do is _enjoy_ it. 

"I'm fine."

He is fine. So what if he'd been startled to find Phil's eyes had blinked open and were looking up at him. So what if he'd cleared his throat and maneuvered out from under the soft press of Phil's body, torn himself away from the warm nest of blankets and into the harsh lighting of the bathroom. So what if it had taken him a few moments to shake it away, to stop feeling a fizzy kind of tingle where Phil's lips had been inches away from his skin. 

He's fine.

It turns out that Phil had bought more than just the sweets and the horns for Buffy. He's also gotten the cheesiest headbands for them with fake weapons that appear to be sticking out of their heads when they wear them. Dan shakes his head when Phil pulls the aprons out of the package.

"Did you get us matching aprons?" he asks. 

"Nope," Phil says, chucking a second packet over towards to Dan, containing something black. "Got you your own."

Dan unwraps it and holds it out to read the writing. "It's perfect."

They try to keep Buffy out of shot during the video. Phil distracts her with a rubber toy shaped like a bone that he said was Halloween themed but that Dan had pointed out was just a regular dog thing.

"Dogs always eat bones, Phil," Dan says at the beginning of the video when Phil is showing off Buffy's costume with his phone camera. They'll edit it in later. 

"Oh yeah!" 

Phil's eyes had gone wide and Dan knew the look on his face had to have been sickeningly fond, his own eyes crinkled up with such soft exasperation at his weird, hopeless, adorably strange best friend.

He rolls his eyes instead, shooting a look to the main camera that can only be interpreted as 'this guy'. 

The rest of the video goes without a hitch, Buffy only interrupts a couple of times and Dan thinks they can probably keep it in the video. She's a good distraction. 

Afterwards, they clean the kitchen and Phil moves the bucket of sweets they hadn't quite managed to work into the video in the way Phil had intended to the coffee table. 

Dan puts the pumpkins near the door to the outside terrace. The scent of the weird orange candles Phil had bought to go inside them smells artificial and sickly sweet.

"Phil!" he shouts from the kitchen, his head in a drawer. 

"Yeah?" 

The voice comes from downstairs where Phil has probably gone to change into his pyjamas. He doesn't need to be dressed now he's not on camera. 

"Do we have any normal candles? These orange ones suck." 

He's got his head in a cupboard and Phil's reply happens too close to his ear, startling him suddenly. 

"You only have your designer ones," he says, and Dan nearly smacks his head on the top of the cupboard in his rush to pull his head out of it. 

"Ow, fuck." 

"Are you okay?" 

Phil reaches out a hand to cup the side of Dan's head, and the warmth of it feels nice against the blossom of a bruise. 

Dan wants to reply, but Phil is so close to him and his hand feels so good as his fingers probe into his hair that he suddenly loses the ability to form words. 

"Dan? Have you got a concussion?"

"I'm fine," Dan says.

Phil drops his hand. "Ok good," he says, and then, "Oh actually! I think there are some plain candles in the living room you can use for the pumpkins."

Dan watches him turn and leave, still a bit dazed. He isn't sure it's entirely from the bump to the head. 

Dan places his hand over the warm spot where Phil's just was and swears he can feel the imprint of it. 

"Dan!" Phil calls from the living room, "Dan! Shit, come here." 

The sound of panic in his voice breaks through the haze of Dan's brain and he's on alert. He skids around the corner from the kitchen into the living room and finds Phil on the floor, his hands around Buffy's fluffy body. 

"What?" 

He sees the upended bucket, the stupid skull shape warped now that it's on it's side, the contents spilling out over the wooden floor. Wrappers are ripped and strewn and Dan instantly sees the problem. 

"Shit," he says. 

"Dan, What do I--" Phil's eyes are wide, panicked and scared, "Dan, what do we do. Call a vet, or a taxi or… I don't know _something_."

"Alright," Dan pulls his phone from his pocket, navigating to Google to pull up the number of the vet that Kelly had mentioned as having her registered with. "Okay. Okay. I'm calling." 

Buffy doesn't seem overly ill at the moment, but he knows that isn't how it works. The chocolate in the sweets is working its way through her tiny body, to a liver that can't handle it, and all too soon, maybe, she'll been much more ill than she is at the moment. 

Phil cradles her close and she pushes her wet nose against his neck as if knowing something is wrong. 

Dan has the urge to put his arms around both of them, but stops himself. 

The woman on the phone answers and Dan tries hard to keep voice level and even while he explains the situation. 

"Okay," she says, calm, collected, like there is nothing whatsoever to worry about. "Bring her on down and we'll have the vet take a look." 

"Phil," Dan says when he puts the phone down. 

Phil looks up, eyes helpless, his fingers tangled in to Buffy's fur, her wagging tail hitting him on the side of the head. 

"Phil, we've got to go." 

"Dan…" 

He looks lost, so afraid for this little life in his hands. She's going to be fine, Dan knows she's going to be fine, but that look on Phil's face is making him feel unsteady. 

"I'm going to get her lead, Phil, okay?" Dan reaches out to stroke at her and she turns her head to look at him. "She's fine for the minute, but we need to go." 

Phil's fingers loosen and Dan takes the opportunity to tug at him, ease him to his feet. Buffy looks a bit perplexed, but she follows behind them anyway like she always does when they go near the door. Her tail is wagging as Dan attaches her lead and coaxes Phil into shoes and a jacket. 

He's got one hand holding Buffy, one tracking the Uber on his phone, swiping to send the driver a text to ask if it's okay to bring a dog. He nudges Phil with his shoulder. 

"It's fine," Phil says.

"Get a blanket for her," Dan says. "For the seat."

"And if she gets cold," Phil says, nodding to himself and going in to Dan's room because it's the closest. 

Dan doesn't even bother to correct him. 

He comes out with Dan's galaxy blanket, the one he spent a few months a while ago walking around the house in. He doesn't ask Dan if it's okay because Buffy is sick, and Dan would let her have just about anything in this moment. Phil seems to know that. 

The phone buzzes as they close the door, the driver letting him know it's fine that they bring a dog, and then that he's only about five minutes away. They get out onto the street and Buffy doesn't pull in the direction of the park but instead she gives a little whine. 

"Dan," Phil says, looking down at her.

"Okay," Dan says, "It's fine. We're going to the vet, they're expecting us." 

Phil doesn't tear his eyes away from Buffy. She sits between them in the back of the car and rests her chin on Dan's knee. He places a hand atop her head and Phil puts his on her neck so that their pinkies are just brushing. 

The driver seems to recognise that they don't want to endure any small talk and mostly leaves them alone save for confirming their destination. Dan makes a mental note to rate him five stars once this is all over. 

At the other end, Phil takes Buffy's lead in his shaking hand. Dan lets it go because it might be nice for Phil to feel like he's in control and besides, Buffy is his dog. 

"I'm Dan," he says to the receptionist, "I called about--" 

"Is this Buffy?" she says, looking down to smile at her. 

"Yes." 

"Silly puppy getting into the chocolate," she coos. "Bet you've scared your daddies half to death." 

Dan is so disorientated hearing the word _daddies_ spoken out loud that the significance of it doesn't register until they're sat down and waiting for the vet, but by then it's too late to correct her about the fact that she's Phil's dog, not his. 

But Phil hadn't corrected her either. 

The vet appears not long after. She has brown curls and teeth a bit too big for her mouth, but she smiles at them widely. 

"Buffy?" she says. 

Phil stands and walks through the door, Buffy trailing after him on the lead, not pulling, not running, just walking slowly. She isn't scared, which is great, but her being so quiet isn't great either. 

"Are you coming?" Phil says to Dan over his shoulder. 

Dan gets up and follows. He hadn't wanted to presume, but he's relieved. The idea of waiting on the hard plastic seat while Buffy went in, not knowing what was happening, would have killed him. 

The examination doesn't start off well. Buffy is fine until Phil lifts her on to the table and then she's scrabbling to get closer to them, trying to pull away from the vet and burrow into Phil's chest. Dan takes her and eases her down into the vet's waiting hands, and Buffy looks at him like he's betrayed her. 

"Don't look at me like that, B," he says, pleading, "It's for the best I promise." 

The vet is nice, and she's gentle as she feels Buffy's stomach, using a soft and sweet voice while she does. Phil barely seems to notice her. Dan answers her questions while Phil bites his lip and emits waves of nervous energy. 

"She's going to be fine," Dan says, and places a hand between his shoulder blades. He doesn't know why, it just makes sense to reach out and offer some physical comfort. All kinds of weird barriers are breaking down lately. 

"He's right," the vet says. "I think we'll just give her something to make her empty the contents of her stomach, and then some small charcoal tablets to help get rid of anything left over that might upset her system, but she'll be right as rain. Lots of cuddles tonight, maybe let her sleep on the bed, and she'll be over in no time." 

Dan doesn't meet Phil's eyes as she mentions the bed thing. He drops his hand and thanks the vet, strokes Buffy to keep her distracted while the vet gets the things she needs. 

The stuff to make her empty her stomach isn't fun, and Phil averts his eyes. Dan has to admit that at least it's over quickly and the vet is good about it, efficient. Next is the charcoal and then it's all over. 

Quick, simple, and Buffy is going to be just fine. 

Phil still looks worried in the car back home, his eyes trained on Buffy, never leaving her.

"You know that it's fine, right?" Dan says as they let themselves back in to the flat. 

"I know that," Phil says, taking the lead off of Buffy so she's free to sniff her way through the house, as if checking nothing has changed in her absence. "But I was so useless, I couldn't do anything at all. I was just… I was so scared. I froze."

"That's a perfectly normal thing, though."

"You had to do everything, I couldn't think."

Dan smiles. "Good job I'm always going to be here to do stuff for you then mate."

Phil blinks, quiet and contemplative. Dan has to swallow and avoid looking back, because something heavy is hovering over them that they aren't talking about directly.

Phil's voice saying 'our dog' inexplicably floats into his mind. 

"Dinner," Dan says, and heads off in the direction of the kitchen. 

Their evening is a little different from normal. Phil's face is pinched tight the entire time and Buffy is tired, a bit slow after everything that happened. 

Phil sits on the opposite couch, editing the video for a while, taking a break to play Fortnite. Dan stretches out, missing the comfortable way they've come to spend their evenings, Phil on the other side of the couch with Buffy resting between them. 

Buffy, for the most part, curls up in a soft circle of fur on the floor at the base of Phil's couch, but at some point she decides to come over, hop up on the couch with Dan and lay down in a long line against his stomach. She is a pleasant weight, heavy and warm.

He feels like crying. He'd held it together for Phil but the truth is he'd been scared too, it just hadn't hit him until now. He puts his hands out to feel the soft rise and fall of her stomach as she breathes, soft fur shifting under his fingertips. 

He breathes too, closing his eyes and succumbing to sleep. 

He wakes later, and Buffy has vacated the couch, his front gone cold from her absence. He hears her bark down the hall, which must be what woke him. Phil is no longer on the couch. He picks up his phone to check the time and finds it's gone midnight, and that Phil has posted a story to instagram. 

He opens it up to find a picture of himself asleep with Buffy. _filming videos is tiring work_ he's captioned it. He hasn't mentioned the vet, which is probably wise, but he has shared this.

It's cosy, almost brazen, Dan can't pinpoint why but it makes him feel just a little exposed in the most thrilling way. 

He drags himself up, stiff and achy from sleeping on the couch. Buffy is barking at the door to his bedroom when he reaches it. 

"No," Phil is saying, "Come on."

Phil is standing in the doorway to his own room, trying to convince her to calm down and come with him. 

"Hi," Dan says. 

"Sorry," Phil says, "I didn't mean to wake you up. I thought she'd stay with you."

"Aren't you--"

He wants to ask why Phil is looking like he's going to sleep in his own room. He wants to tell him not to. 

"Your toothbrush is in my bathroom," he says instead. 

"Oh," Phil nods and follows in behind Dan.

Buffy has stopped barking, seemingly happy she's convinced them to stop being silly and comply with her wishes.

Phil is quiet as they brush their teeth side by side and he doesn't meet Dan's eyes in the mirror. It makes Dan feel unsettled, like he's doing something wrong, but then he'd expected Phil go take his toothbrush and leave. 

Everything is weird. 

Dan rinses, leaves Phil alone with whatever thoughts are in his head and gets ready for bed. He's under the covers by the time Phil comes out of the bathroom, fingers linked together, twisting around themselves. 

Buffy, who has already taken her spot on the bed, looks up at him. 

"She's had an ordeal," Dan says. 

"Yes."

"So have you."

Phil nods, but he's looking down at Buffy, rather than at Dan.

"Get into bed, Phil."

Dan can't believe he's said it like that. He doesn't even know why he did. It just feels like the things to comfort him. He wants to reassure Phil that he doesn't have to, that he'd only been offering because Phil looks ashen with everything that _could_ have happened and Dan wants to erase that immediately. 

But he doesn't have time. No sooner have the words left his mouth but Phil is crossing the space to the bed, climbing in beside him, flat on his back. 

The world feels right again, rearranged around him in a configuration that is becoming more and more familiar as the days go on. 

Maybe it shouldn't, and maybe it should be more shocking to him that this is the first time he's offered out his bed as comfort to Phil rather than just Buffy. Let alone that Phil had accepted it so readily. 

But he's tired, and the worry of the day is weighing on him too, so with the press of Buffy on his feet and the sound of Phil's breathing by his side, he falls asleep.


	6. Chapter Six

It's only awkward for that first night, and then they're back to their routine. Nearly a week later, he wakes with Phil in his bed again, the weight of slumber sliding off him slowly. He knows today is a day that is going to feel heavy and sapped, he's been feeling the slow slide of it for at least a week. 

They had plans to have friends over later, to watch fireworks from their balcony and sip homemade cocktails, but he can already tell that's going to be difficult. 

He turns, Phil is beside him and he's pressed up close and Dan thinks he might indulge in it for a little bit. It's the only thing that's puncturing the hard fog of a bad day. 

But when he turns all the way over he's surprised to find Phil already awake, clearly lingering in the warmth himself without any indication of moving away. 

"Hi," Dan says, watching Phil's face turn guilty and blinking. 

"Morning," Phil responds, and shifts to put some space between them like any respectable flatmate would in this situation. 

Not that many flatmates find themselves in this situation very often.

Dan doesn't want to be awake. Dark fog claws inside his head and he just doesn't have any energy for it. Buffy comes up from the bottom of the mattress now that they're awake and Phil greets her. 

"Yes Buff, it's breakfast time, I know." 

Phil gets up, taking his warmth with him. Dan rolls over into the space that Phil has vacated and Phil has enough kindness not to mention it. 

"You coming?" He says instead. 

"No."

He doesn't want to say it outright, even though he's trying to get better at vocalizing when he's feeling bad, because there shouldn't be any shame in it. But at this moment he feels like a burden, he just needs a bit more sleep, to perhaps shake it off and start feeling a bit better. 

Phil goes to feed Buffy, and Dan can hear him rattling about over his head, the well-known sound of his footsteps on the tiled floor. He keeps up a constant stream of chatter, though Dan can't make out the words, and Dan closes his eyes, lets himself drift. 

He isn't sure what's brought it on today. Some of the lost feeling left over from tour perhaps, barrelling towards the new year with all of its expectation, without a steer or knowledge of what comes next. 

Not to mention the fact that he's got this whole weird sleeping arrangement with Phil that they aren't talking about. 

Phil brings him coffee, and places it on the bedside table. He doesn't try to force Dan to wake up, or to move. He's probably caught on by now at what is happening today. 

Dan knows he probably has the amount of time it takes for him to drink the coffee before Phil will be back with a gentle suggestion of movement. It's part of the stuff they talked about when Dan finally came to terms with the fact that he would always have days like this. 

Buffy sniffs at him. It's new, almost, to have her around when he feels like this. She stays when Phil leaves the room and falls into a long line down his side. 

He puts an arm around her and presses his nose into the fur at her neck. If the world weren't grey and hollow he might cry, but as it is he just holds her close for a short while and she just lets him. 

"Dogs can tell these things," his mum had said when he was younger. When he was young and sick and his old childhood dog had hopped up on the couch next to him. It had been nice then, a huge great dog to bundle up next to, and his mum hadn't shouted at him to get down off the couch like she usually would have. 

Phil does come back in a little while. Usually he'd simply ask Dan if he wanted to do something, offer to sit and play computer games while Dan zoned out, perhaps ask if he wanted Phil to run a bath. 

Now, he sits down on the edge of the bed, dipping it so that Dan rolls towards him slightly with Buffy between them. He places a hand on Buffy's back, not on top of Dan's hand but right up close to it. 

That's new.

"I'm going to take her out for a walk," he says, "did you want to come?" 

Dan feels leaden. The idea of dragging himself up and out into the cold is almost unthinkable, but something about Phil going alone, about missing out on the slow, gentle way they make their way around the park, is worse. 

It's their routine, a patch of morning just for them, without the need to rush back to work or anything. It might be manageable even when he feels like this. 

"I could," he says. "Maybe."

"You don't have to," Phil says, which is another thing he always does. 

"No I'm… I should. It might help." He shakes his head and sits up slowly. 

Buffy stands with him, looking smug, like she was the one that fixed something she knew was wrong. Dan scratches her behind the ear and she clambers onto his lap.

"Terror," he says, fondly. 

Phil's mouth is crooked, a smile that's slow and thoughtful. 

Dan doesn't get dressed properly. He throws a jumper overtop of his pyjamas, which were just a t-shirt and sweatpants anyway, and then shrugs his coat on over it all. Phil doesn't say a word about it. 

The park has people in it. Obviously it has people in it and Dan doesn't know why he's surprised about that, but it pushes up against his mood today. The world outside feels too bright, too much work, just too much of everything. He thinks about going back inside as soon as they're on the pavement but Phil strides onwards, the red lead in his hand, letting the cord go long so Buffy can run ahead a little, and Dan just follows after them. 

He remembers to breathe. He doesn't say much as they walk but instead counts on the in breaths and the out, feeling the cold air of the outside in his lungs and reminding himself that he doesn't _have_ to do anything else today if he doesn't want to. That it's okay to feel bad. 

"There are people coming over tonight," he says. "For the fireworks." 

"Oh," Phil says, "yeah. I forgot to say, I texted them and told them not to come, I'm not really feeling up to it." 

Dan glances over to him and Phil isn't meeting his eyes, he's watching Buffy sniff at the same bush she always sniffs at, in the same way that she always sniffs at it, like it's the most interesting thing in the world. He's watches Buffy, and not looking at Dan.

"Thank you," he says, softly. 

Phil nods, once, and they continue their circuit of the park. On the way back, Dan isn't beginning to feel _better_ persay, but he feels a little more awake. He's ready to be back inside, but he doesn't feel the instant urge to crawl back under his duvet, so it's a bit of a win. 

"She seems fine," Phil says, still referring to the incident with the chocolate nearly a week ago. 

"She is," Dan says, for the hundredth time, "she's fine." 

They've talked about how scared Phil was. He's reassured him so many times that it was fine, that it was normal to be scared. Dan has repeated time and time again that he doesn't mind having been the one to call the vet and arrange the car, that he'd had to stay calm. If anything, having that stuff to do meant his brain didn't start flinging itself wildly into the worst case scenario. 

"I just worry," Phil says, "when someone I care about is hurting."

"Phil…" 

He doesn't miss the subtext of it, but he can't acknowledge it directly because today is horrible, and that feels like too nice of a sentiment. Maybe he's a little fucked up for liking it, but there it is. 

They spend the rest of the walk in comfortable silence. When they get back inside and Buffy's paws are clean and she's off the lead, Dan fetches the large fur blanket from his room and takes it to the couch. He isn't going back to bed, but he still isn't doing anything today. 

Dan settles himself on the couch under his blanket. It's a nice cocoon, but it doesn't feel exactly right. At least here, on the couch, it doesn't feel like a massive space he can't hope to fill alone. He doesn't have to think about Phil joining him here. 

Instead, Phil sits on the floor with Buffy and lets Dan be quiet and still while he watches them play. He's still working on fetch, she'll drop the ball occasionally now, but it isn't consistent. 'Sit' only works if there is a treat involved and anything like 'stay' is best to be forgotten before they've even started. Buffy goes where she wants, when she wants, and there is no changing it. 

Dan closes his eyes. He can hear Phil chatting to Buffy, but it fades into background noise. The inside of his head feels heavy and blurred, like static on a TV back when you had to tune them in. He can’t be physically tired, because despite waking up in this state he’d slept quite well last night- he’s been sleeping well a lot lately- it’s just his mind that feels exhausted. 

Phil’s voice continues in the background, and although he feels strange on the couch, exposed in some way, he falls into a light sleep. 

He wakes some time later. He can’t be sure how long exactly, but it must be a few hours because the room has a cast of afternoon grey that appears at this time of year. He’s woken by Buffy licking him on the nose and he sputters as his eyes open, pulling away. 

“Ah!” he says. 

Phil chuckles behind him, echoing in a way that tells Dan he’s in the kitchen. 

“I’m making sandwiches,” Phil calls, “you want some?” 

He’s asking Dan if he wants to, because he’s a good friend like that, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been making one anyway. Or that if Dan says no, he’d bring it in and put it down on the coffee table just the same. 

“Sure,” Dan says. 

He sits up, the blanket falling away. Buffy takes the opportunity to jump up onto the couch, her feet tangling in the fabric. 

“Alright,” he says to her, “yes. I’m awake.” 

Phil arrives with the sandwich a few minutes later, once Buffy has situated herself in the middle of the blanket, its folds wrapped around her, like a nest she’s made herself. _Look Dad_ she seems to say _Look at what I did_. 

“You comfy?” Phil says, smiling at her. 

Dan still feels a bit numb. Distant and far away from his own body, but looking down at Buffy he has to admit that the sight of her raised ears and fluffy tail wagging against the fur of his blanket, does make him feel, for the first time that day, a flicker of something pleasant. 

“Budge up,” Phil says. 

Phil crowds into his space, sitting just the other side of Buffy but close enough that the blanket is pinned to Dan’s side by Phil’s hip. He’s close, and warm, and it’s a bit like getting some of the morning back. 

Dan shakes his head and takes a bite of his sandwich before that thought takes hold. He’s feeling off today is all, he’s touch starved and sad and Phil is being nice to him. It all just gets a little jumbled in his head. 

It’s natural for him to cling onto what little good he has at the moment. Phil, and Buffy. 

There is silence as they eat. Buffy tries to eat Phil’s sandwich at least twice, with Phil refusing each time, and she is now settled with her head on Dan’s lap and her hind quarters on Phil’s. She lets out a long, breathy sigh through her nose, a high-pitched sound that makes her seem completely done with everything because Phil won’t give in. 

Phil lifts up the remote in a clear question and Dan nods, happy to settle into this spot for the foreseeable. Phil puts on Netflix and Dan places his empty plate on the arm of the couch when he's done. Buffy is a comfortable weight on his legs, and Phil is warm all down one side, and he thinks he could stay here forever. Or, at least for the rest of the evening. 

The world grows dark at their windows, behind their blinds, and Phil hasn't turned a light on. The room is in darkness and Buffy has her eyes shut on his knees when they hear the first bang from outside. 

Buffy lifts her head, ears pricked, tail tucked under. She lets out a soft whine. 

"Oh, shit," Phil says. "Fireworks." 

He looks scared, and concerned, pushing his fingers into the scruff at Buffy's neck, making soft shushing noises. He's staring at Dan, eyes wide, and Dan knows what he's thinking. 

Why hadn't they thought about this? He's suddenly so thankful that they didn't end up going out, that they didn't have people round, because right now all they can do is take care of Buffy. 

There is another whistle outside of something fizzing through the air, culminating in a loud bang that makes Buffy whine again and push her nose under a fold in the blanket. 

"What do we do?" Dan says. 

"Downstairs?" Phil suggests. "Um… ah… I don't know. Gaming room?" 

"It's got the soundproofing," Dan shrugs, "maybe it works the other way too?" 

He's grasping at straws, but it's as good a plan as any. Next year, he thinks, next year they'll plan better. Maybe they'll go away, to Phil's parents' where there are less people and less fireworks. Or maybe they'll get one of those plug-ins that are supposed to calm pets during this time. Or maybe when Buffy is a bit older she won't be as affected but right now she's a puppy, a scared, shaking puppy, trying to hide her whole body, burrowing close to the both of them. 

"Sorry B," he says, "We're so sorry."

Phil scoops her up, hefting her into his arms as if she weighs nothing. 

"Do not carry her down the stairs," Dan says, "you'll fall and break both your necks." 

Phil considers this for a moment before placing her gently back down on the floor. She looks up at him, snout laid flat along his leg, her warm eyes look plaintive and pleading, it breaks Dan's heart just a bit to see. 

"Come on, Buffy," Phil says, jogging down the stairs. 

She follows him, always close, because she trusts that he's leading her somewhere better, away from the loud horrible noises. Outside, another firework whizzes through the air and Dan curses the day four hundred years ago when people decided to blow up parliament. 

Dan goes downstairs too, stopping only to drag the duvet from his bed and a sheet from the linen closet on the way. Phil looks up at him when he walks in, eyebrows raised. 

"I figured we'd be here a while. And she should probably stay in here tonight so I thought…" he lets his words trail off. 

He'd meant to stay with her, with Buffy, to sleep on the sofa bed and make sure she's okay, but he can see how ridiculous it looks. She's Phil's dog, he should be the one to stay. 

"I mean, I can get your—" 

"No," Phil says, eyebrows resting. He's sat in the computer chair and Buffy is perched at his feet. She's looking up at both of them, still hesitant and subdued in a way Dan hates. "It's a good idea. We can stay in here with her."

_We_. It's alway 'we' and Phil assuming things like them sleeping on the sofa bed together, taking for granted that Dan is happy to go along with this stupid bed sharing plan forever. At some point they're going to have to come to some sort of agreement about when this ends, how they're going to proceed once she gets a bit older. 

She's a puppy now, so maybe her behaviour can be put down to that, but they're kidding themselves if they think that going on like this forever is sustainable. At some point she is going to have to learn to be away from one of them. Maybe away from Dan more permanently if and when Phil moves out. 

Another firework sounds in the sky, but is dulled and far away. Buffy still whines, but it's quieter than it was. He closes the door, hoping that will take care of what is left of the sound, and busies himself with pulling the sofa bed out into it's full configuration, and spreading the sheet and duvet overtop. Anything to stop himself thinking about what happens in the future. 

"Do you wanna watch netflix on the gaming PC?" Phil says, "or play something?" 

"Netflix is good," Dan nods.

He finishes the bed, and there is silence as Phil finds a show. Dan takes the time to get down on the floor next to Buffy and she walks over to him gladly. She offers him a wet lick to his cheek and presses the top of her furry head against his neck. 

"You're okay, B," he says, in the voice he saves for her, the soft sweet one. Phil looks over at him out of the corner of his eye, but Dan doesn't miss it. "We've got you." 

He continues to stroke her, speaking nonsense words and phrases, telling her that stupid men in the stupid sixteen hundreds had decided to blow up stupid parliament, and that's why even more stupid people now set off gunpowder into the sky. 

Phil continues the show they were watching upstairs. It's a re-watch, so Dan doesn't have to pay too much attention to it if he doesn't want to. 

"How are you feeling," Phil says. 

Dan takes stock. The worry for Buffy, the rush of adrenaline that came with wanting to get her out of there, has wiped away some of the fog from his bad day, but it isn't gone completely. He still feels drained, he's almost thankful for this dark, quiet room he can spend the rest of his evening in. 

"I'm just gunna—" Phil says, "Um, pyjamas." 

"Sure." 

Dan keeps grip on Buffy's collar as Phil scoots around him. It's awkward and there should be enough space for them to pass without incident but Dan keeps stepping into Phil's path. Phil laughs as they both step one way, then the other, before taking Dan's shoulders in his hands and making him stand still while he passes. 

He doesn't know why he feels so awkward, why he's suddenly aware of all of his limbs and where they are, and the warmth of Phil's hands over the top of his jumper. 

Phil leaves to brush his teeth and change into pyjamas and when he comes back, Phil keeps Buffy company while Dan does the same. The fireworks are continuing outside, and Dan wonders if there is some kind of event going on in the park, or a nearby community space, that means they're going to carry on for a while. At least they have a plan, and Buffy is sat on Phil's feet when Dan comes back in. 

She's still looking for him though, and she doesn't lay down until Dan is back in the room with the door shut. 

Dan hesitates, just for a second, looking at the image of Phil on the sofa bed, under Dan's duvet. The pale grey on the pale skin of Phil's arms and the soft cream of the Friends t-shirt he's decided to wear. Underneath, it would contrast even more heavily with the bright yellow of those god awful emoji pyjamas that Dan hates so much. And yet, the entire picture looks right. Somehow. 

"Come on," Phil says, "I wanna press play."

Dan doesn't give it any more thought. He slips under the covers, next to Phil, and Buffy rearranges herself to lay between both sets of their feet. She is unconcerned with their new sleeping arrangements, happy to be wherever they are just by virtue of them being there. She's peaceful at least, content again. 

Phil presses play on the show, and Dan doesn't think he really watches any of it. Instead, he lets his head rest right on the end of his pillow, not sharing one with Phil, not cuddled up close or touching him at all, but near enough to feel his warmth. 

It's strange to be sleeping here, in this room, and they're kidding themselves if they think they really need to do this, but it's a thing they're doing anyway. 

The day had been awful, in a lot of ways, but in some it's been nice. Phil taking care of him, them both taking care of Buffy. Like a unit, the three of them, holding each other up on the bad days. The day still feels heavy, it's still a bad day, but Dan can feel a flicker of warm satisfaction burning in his stomach at how that feels. How it is to have Phil and Buffy and this little fortress where he is safe from the world's ills. 

He keeps that feeling as he closes his eyes, and goes to sleep.


	7. Chapter Seven

Late November brings with it a chill in the air and Dan finds himself thankful for the warm presence of Phil in his bed, and the weight of Buffy on his feet. 

Buffy seems more settled than she has thus far, going along with the routine they have developed without fuss and sleeping well at night. She still isn't the best at fetch, but she knows her name, and 'get down' and a few other things. She understands 'no', but they don't say it to her often. 

They try to have rules for her. They try to keep her out of the way when they are filming, but she often barges in anyway. Though she is better at sitting in the background and not interrupting until one or both of them engage with her. 

She features on the gaming channel more than once, and then again on Phil's. Their instagrams become almost exclusively dedicated to sharing cute moments of Buffy, and while it is completely adorable, Dan still feels a slight twinge every time Phil shares something with him in it. sometimes all three of them are in frame and Dan looks at the pictures for a touch too long before saving them to his phone. 

Buffy has become a firm member of their household, with her own larger-than-life personality, and also a main character in the Dan And Phil canon among their fans. They get more questions and comments about her than they do anything else these days, which is a welcome relief from some of the other things they might hear about constantly, but Dan is still unsure how much he wants to engage with it specifically. 

Buffy is Phil's dog, so he doesn't want to offer an image that he's more involved than he should be. 

He doesn't even know how to feel about how involved he _is_. She is Phil's dog, but sometimes she feels like Dan's too. 

The morning they decide to film pinof, Phil wakes with a groan into the sunlight, and a pinched expression between his brows. Buffy lifts her head and moves up the bed when she feels him move, and greets them both with a long, wet lick on their faces. 

"Ugh," Dan says, chuckling at her, "morning dog breath. Lovely." 

Phil doesn't laugh, and Dan looks over at him, already concerned. 

"You okay?" 

Phil reaches out to stroke Buffy and she turns to him to accept the affection, pushing her wet nose against his face. 

"Headache," Phil croaks. 

"I'll get you tablets," Dan says. 

For a split second he has the urge to reach out and lay a soothing hand against Phil's forehead or something, or to run his fingers through Phil's hair in the hopes of alleviating some of his pain, but just as his fingers twitch Buffy licks at Phil's face and Phil rolls away from him, distracted. 

Dan lifts himself out of the warmth of their sheets - His sheets - and goes to the kitchen. 

Buffy hops down behind him and Dan fills her bowl with breakfast as he boils the kettle. She pushes her nose into the bowl amongst the dry dog food biscuits, and the sound of her crunching on them fills the silence alongside the gentle hiss of the kettle. 

These are the sounds of their mornings now. Dan clinks the bowls as he makes cereal, and then sloshes coffee into a mug for Phil. The instant kind, because that's what he likes. 

A quick trip to the bathroom off the living room to fetch the pills Phil keep there for his migraines, and then he loads himself up with all of it and takes it back to the bedroom. 

Phil is still curled up in his bed. He's got Dan's grey duvet pulled up over his shoulder, and his black hair is fanned out on one of Dan's pillows. Buffy isn't there, Dan isn't there, so it's just Phil. Alone. 

It should look strange. It should strike him as odd to see his best friend in his bed, because objectively this is a weird situation. It's completely baffling that they've decided this is the way to solve the issue of Buffy not being able to sleep and in moments like this, Dan can recognise that for what it is. 

The problem is that most of the time, when they're climbing into bed and the soft sound of Phil's breathing is the last thing he hears before he falls asleep, Dan doesn't find it weird at all. 

Dan nudges at Phil, pressing his hip briefly into the line of his back and Phil turns over with a groan and blinking eyes. 

"Oh," he says, as if he'd fallen back asleep and forgotten Dan would be coming back with his medication. He probably had. 

He sits up and reaches out for his glasses on the bedside table. That's where he keeps them now, there on that corner where they fit so well, so he's able to find them readily in the morning when the world is blurry. 

"Thanks," Phil says. 

Dan doesn't turn a light on, and he's thankful for the way his blinds make the room darker than it would be otherwise. Phil looks like the light would bother him this morning. 

"Take these," Dan says, passing him the pills. 

Phil looks at them, considering. 

"It's not that bad," he says. 

"It might get that bad," Dan insists. "Take them before it does." 

He knows they make Phil tired if he takes them, and they were planning to film later, but his concern for Phil's headache is much more important than the video is. 

"We can film tomorrow," Dan says. 

Phil shakes his head, opening the packet and taking out one of the tablets inside. 

"I can do it today," Phil insists. "If I sleep off the meds, I'll be okay." 

"Well... we'll see," Dan says, softly. 

He really doesn't mind if they don't film. It doesn't have to be today if Phil isn't feeling up to it. 

Phil takes his tablet with a sip of his coffee and then looks down at the cereal. Buffy walks into the room then and looks up at them as if to say _what's going on, this isn't the routine at all_. 

"I'm going to take her out," Dan says. 

"I can come--" Phil says, moving the bowl to one hand as if to put it down. 

Dan puts his hand on Phil's shoulder. He doesn't apply any pressure, just holds it there until Phil stops moving. 

"I've got it," he says, "rest." 

Phil relents, leaning back against the pillows and eating his cereal in small, concise bites, chewing each mouthful slowly as if the loud crunching might be too much for his headache. He has maybe thirty minutes before the tablets kick in and hopefully he'll be able to get some sleep. 

Dan leaves him in his bed, and takes Buffy out on a walk. 

She makes a bit of a fuss at the door, looking back towards the bedroom, whining softly and then turning sad eyes to Dan. 

_Where's Dad,_ she seems to say _isn't he coming too?_

"Your dad isn't feeling well, B," Dan says, "it's just us today. Come on." 

Buffy takes some coaxing to get her out of the door, but she does eventually come. Dan does a loop of the park, his coat done up to his chin and a scarf thrown on for good measure because the weather is getting colder. It feels odd to be out here without Phil, to have to hold her lead the entire way around circuit instead of passing it off between them in the way they usually do, depending on which direction she wants to go. 

He thinks of how he left Phil in his bed. How Phil's own bed hasn't been slept in for quite some time now, even though that is usually where he would be if he was ill. It isn't that Dan minds, it's just that if he thinks about it too hard or for too long, the whole idea of doing it for Buffy starts to unravel. 

It starts to look like a stupid excuse. But then, an excuse for what? It's not like they want to be doing it, it's not like they would be doing it if Buffy hadn't been making a fuss about it and not sleeping properly. 

Dan isn't stupid, he knows it can't go on forever, but he is getting a little worried that Buffy is getting used to having the two of them there, that she sees Dan's bed as _their_ bed, that the more she gets used to it, the more she will want it. 

To be honest, Dan thinks he might be getting used to it a bit too much as well. 

Dan finishes his loop of the park and then heads back in. It's the same distance that they usually go, but without Phil there to stroll with he finds it takes him less time than usual, he doesn't see any point in prolonging it when he's by himself. 

There is no sound in the flat when they get in. Dan dries off Buffy's feet on the towel they just keep by the door for that purpose now, and she goes skittering off down the hall and into the dark open doorway of Dan's bedroom. 

Dan pokes his head into the room too, just to make sure she isn't disturbing Phil too much. The room is dark. The cereal bowl is empty and on the floor next to the bed and Phil's glasses are back on the bedside table. Phil is curled under the duvet, facing towards him. He's obviously been back to sleep, but his eyes are blinking now as Buffy hops up onto the bed and sniffs at him. 

"Come on, B," Dan says, "Leave your dad alone." 

Phil's mouth curves into a shallow, weak smile. He looks tired. 

"She's fine," Phil says, and Buffy walks in a circle before flopping down next to him, curved into his side. Phil sinks his fingers into her fur and she tucks her head onto the top of her front paws and breathes out noisily through her nose. "I could do with Buffy cuddles right now."

"Sure," Dan says. 

His voice comes out quiet and disappears towards the end of the word. He feels awkward, here in his own bedroom, like he's intruding or something. 

"Do you want anything else before I leave you alone? Water or something?" 

Phil shakes his head, stroking the ruff of Buffy's fur. She looks so small under his wide palm and long fingers, but she doesn't seem to mind. She just blinks contentedly and wags her tail against the bed sheets with a calming swish of sound. 

"I don't need anything," Phil says. His words are slow, like he's pushing them through treacle. The painkillers he takes are strong and Dan knows they can get him like this sometimes while they're working. He should be fine in a few hours, once he's had a chance to sleep properly, but at least they'll keep the headache at bay long enough for him to be able to actually sleep instead of fighting the migraine. 

Dan bends to pick up the empty cereal bowl. There is a tiny amount of milk still lingering in the bottom of it, and the spoon slides against the ceramic with a hum. Buffy looks at him, but doesn't seem interested and closes her eyes as he turns to leave the room. 

They can both nap for a bit, Dan thinks, and he will go and continue to be alone. 

It isn't that he minds so much. Being alone is one of the things he knows how to do really well. He's perfected the art of it over the years, but he realises that it's been a while since he's had to do it too much. Even on his bad days he'd spent time with both Phil and Buffy in comfortable silence. 

The small unit they make these days has become his safe space, and it makes him vaguely perturbed to realise that. Being his own person is so important to him, that relying on this weird temporary setup seems foolish. He really needs to get a grip. 

"Stay with me?"

Dan turns back to the bed and Phil is looking up at him. He looks tired, his face is slightly pinched by a headache that hasn't quite gone away and he looks lost in the king size bed and thick grey duvet. 

"What?" Dan says. 

"Stay," Phil repeats, hazy and drunk, "with us. I'm going to go back to sleep but I thought…" 

He trails off and lifts the hand from Buffy's fur to worry at the side of his thumbnail. Dan looks at the picture of the two of them. They look so cosy, and Phil looks so troubled by his headache still. Dan feels the same tug he did that morning, to offer Phil some comfort in any way that he can. 

"Sure," he says, like it's no big deal. Like his heart isn't suddenly, inexplicably, beating hard in his chest. 

It _is_ no big deal. It's no different to sharing a bed at night. If it makes Phil feel better to have him there in the same way that it makes Buffy feel better to have them both close then, well, Dan can do that. 

"I'll just…" Dan holds up the bowl by way of explanation and then leaves before Phil can reply. 

He isn't sure whether he's scared Phil will agree, or that he'll say he's changed his mind. 

He dumps the bowl in the sink, not even bothering to spend the extra seconds putting it in the dishwasher. He grabs his laptop from where he'd left it and heads back to the bedroom with increasingly smaller, slower steps. 

When he finally gets the courage to cross the threshold Phil looks up at him with a kind of relief. Like he'd thought Dan might not come back. 

"Hey," Dan says, like an idiot. 

"Hey." 

They look at each other for a second, and Dan is happy to let it happen, to take a few moments to try and stop the weird, inexplicable squirmy feeling he's got. Why would he be feeling like this? It's just Phil. It's not like it's the first time they've sat next to each other on a bed for fucks sake. 

Then Phil's right eye twitches and Dan makes the decision to stop dawdling. 

"Sleep," Dan says, moving around to the other side of the bed. 

"Hm," Phil hums, and he finally drops his head back to the pillow. 

Dan climbs in on the other side, he arranges himself to that he's got a pillow propped in his lower back and he rests against the headboard. Phil rolls over on his pillow so that his head is tucked in towards Dan's body, but there is still some space between them. Space for Dan to breathe and shake off his needless nerves. 

Buffy opens her eyes and wags her tail at Dan. She clambers over Phil's body, which can't be comfortable, and instead drops into the space between them so that she can feel both of them on either side. 

"S'like one big cuddle," Phil says, his words slurring so that Dan can tell the painkillers are really in effect now. "Buffy-Dan-Phil cuddle." 

Phil's voice is a bit sing-song and Dan wants to laugh at him, and he probably will later once Phil is feeling a bit better, but for now he just smiles to himself and reaches out to pat Phil's head. 

"Sleep," he says again. 

Phil hums, pushing his head into Dan's hand as he tries to retreat. 

"Nice," Phil says. 

Dan considers him. He's got his eyes closed, and his hand is resting on Buffy's back again, and she is perfectly happy to lay between the two of them. Phil is stroking Buffy, and Dan is close to petting Phil. 

It really is just like one big cuddle. 

Dan pushes his fingers into the silky strands of Phil's hair. He starts at the crown, picking it up and letting it fall back down, and then progresses to stroking at the short bristly bits over Phil's ears. Eventually, he winds up running his fingers through the hair at Phil's hairline, sweeping it from his forehead again and again, all the way down to his nape. 

Phil sighs happily, a gasp of pleasure escaping him, and Dan thinks that maybe it's offering him some relief from the headache, so how bad could it be to just keep doing it? 

He keeps one hand in Phil's hair, stroking and petting, as he diverts his attention back to his laptop screen. To emails and Wikipedia and any number of other things he can occupy himself with. 

Phil's hand stops petting at Buffy and falls still into the soft fluff of her fur. His breathing goes shallow and even and he's finally, peacefully, asleep. Dan sneaks one look at him, relieved to find that he no longer looks like he's in pain. 

Dan keeps running his fingers through Phil's hair, keeps offering him that small amount of physical contact just because Phil had asked for it. He keeps at it for a while, long after Phil is so asleep that he wouldn't even notice if he stopped. 

It's fine, it's completely and utterly fine because this is what they do. They share a bed for their dog, and they cuddle on it to ease a headache. Nothing weird about that at all.


	8. Chapter Eight

Phil has left tinsel on the TV stand again. Buffy is sniffing at it, and Dan has to whip it up into his hand to avoid her chomping down on the shiny, plastic fronds.

"Phil!" Dan yells. He's only downstairs, setting up the spare room for PJ and Sophie who are coming over later, but Dan feels the need to shout loudly anyway. 

"Yes?" 

Phil appears at the bottom of the stairs, poking his head around the bend in them. He's got his glasses on today, and a pale blue hoodie Dan hasn't seen him wear in a while. One toggle is longer than the other and he resists the urge to walk down and even them out. 

Dan holds the tinsel up and raises an eyebrow. 

"It's December!" Phil says. 

"It is the _beginning_ of December," Dan corrects him. "Not decorating time yet." 

Phil pouts, which just makes Dan chuckle at him and attempt to throw the tinsel in his direction. It doesn't go far, instead it just twirls in the air for a couple of seconds before landing feebly on the stairs between them. 

Buffy takes this as a challenge and skitters down them after it. Phil has to climb up the few stairs to retrieve it before she makes too much of a mess. 

"Not for Buffys," Phil says, winding it around his hand. 

She looks up at him expectantly. This is a good game, much like fetch with the ball, and she wants him to throw it. 

Dan sighs, "come on, B. let's go outside where we can play with something that won't choke you." 

"Christmas decorations are going to happen," Phil says, "we'll just do something she won't eat." 

"What if she tries to eat the tree?"

Phil looks down at the tan and white fluffball, "then… guess that means no tree," he decides. He is pouting softly, but his voice sounds resolute about his decision. 

Phil is willing to give up a Christmas tree for her, and there aren't many things that Phil loves as much as decorating for Christmas. 

Dan takes Buffy out onto the terrace and throws the ball for her the short distance that they have. It isn't as good as going to the park but they do let her out here to sniff around and chase after the small rubber ball. She doesn't drop it when asked, she holds it in her mouth and then gets annoyed when Dan doesn't throw it for her, because she hasn't quite worked out that she needs to stop chewing it in order for him to do that. 

It's cold, and Dan wishes he had something better than the jumper and the denim jacket that he'd thrown on over it, but Buffy is having fun so he stays out until his hands have turned red with the chill. 

When he goes inside, Phil hands him a steaming mug of tea. Phil has his post-lunch coffee on the table beside him, and he's looking at his phone. 

"They should be here soon," he says, "just got off the train." 

Dan takes a sip of his coffee and tries not to roll his eyes at the tinsel which has found its way onto the top of the games shelf out of Buffy's reach. 

Dan drops down onto the couch and Buffy jumps up beside them. Phil is still looking at his phone, scrolling like he's on Twitter or something, and he reaches out to pet at Buffy absentmindedly, but misses and puts a hand on Dan's leg instead. 

He looks up, moving his hand back quickly. 

"Ha," Phil laughs, "sorry." 

"Are you petting me?" Dan asks.

Phil reaches up to ruffle his hair and then scratches his nails against Dan's scalp as he would to Buffy. Dan tips his head and pushes into the sensation, going with the joke. He yaps, just once, like the tiny puppy noises Buffy makes sometimes. 

Buffy jumps up between them because she doesn't like being ignored for too long, and the joke dissolves. Phil laughs, and Dan joins in, all the while trying not to think about how it had actually felt nice to have Phil's hand in his hair. 

PJ and sophie arrive not too long after. They've got bags with them that phil helps to dump in the spare bedroom, and Dan makes them doth a drink. 

They chat for a while and catch up on things in the way that friends who don't see each other too often do. They usually manage to hang out every couple of months or so, but it's been a while because of the tour. 

Buffy is shy at first, but PJ gets down on the floor and tugs on the end of the rope toy that she likes to play tug of war with, and she soon comes round. 

Sophie strokes her and gives her a bit of fuss, and smiles at them. 

"Your dog is so cute," she says to Dan. 

Phil and PJ are choosing board games and Dan is sat on the floor next to the coffee table, Buffy running between them. 

She is beginning to like the company, since it gives her two new people to demand attention from, and they are happy to give it. 

She is objectively a cute dog, how could anyone resist? 

"Do we want to play at the table?" Phil says. 

"I'm good here if everyone else is?" Dan says, shuffling up beside the coffee table and drumming his hands on top of it. 

"Good with me," PJ says, and Sophie nods too. 

they let PJ and Sophie sit on the couch, and Dan and phil get comfortable on the floor on the other side of the table so they can play. Buffy takes up her usual position across both of their laps, head on Phil's and her tail swishing on Dan's, and PJ gives them a funny look that Dan won't let himself dwell on for too long. 

The games involves them making up characters and backstories and it plays into PJ and Phil's weird creativity way more than it does Dan's. 

He's too inclined to make everything a bit dark and depressing, but at least he's consistent in his branding. More than once he finds himself laughing at something Phil has said, shoulders shaking, bumping into Phil's because they're sat so close to allow Buffy to lay across them. 

He hadn't even thought about it, but PJ gives him another one of those looks across the table and Dan pulls away the tiniest bit. Not that it helps, as soon as Dan shifts, Phil does too, without really paying any attention, and they are just as close as they were before. 

PJ has the corners of his mouth turned up, and his gaze looks far too assessing, so as soon as they've played some games, and that portion of the evening is over, Dan moves out from under Buffy and stands up a bit too quickly. 

"Do you want to order in for dinner? I thought we'd probably get a takeaway or something. You don't want to be subjected to my cooking. Should we get sushi?" Dan is on his feet, stretching his arms over his head to elongate his spine. 

Phil gives him a funny look from his position on the floor, a line appearing briefly between his eyebrows before smoothing out. Dan suddenly feels self conscious of all his actions, which isn't a feeling he's used to getting around PJ and Sophie, and especially not around Phil. 

"We… yeah. We could order it, and Buffy needs walking so I could do that while we wait," Phil suggests. 

"Hm," Dan nods. "Sure." 

Phil's face suddenly alights with an idea and he turns to PJ and Sophie, "Do you want to walk our dog with us while we wait for food? I promise it isn't too far, we just nip around the green, she can't walk too far yet." 

Sophie nods politely, and PJ gets that look on his face that Dan is growing used to for a split second before agreeing that yes, it would be good to go for a walk. 

Dan takes charge of collating the sushi order and placing it with the local restaurant they like to order from. It will take about forty five minutes before it arrives because they make it all fresh, and that gives them enough time to bundle up in coats and scarves and get Buffy on her lead. 

Outside the light is dying. The sky is an inky navy, and the ground is wet where it's been raining, but for now it's dry. It's cold, and they are put their hands in their pockets and breathe fog with every breath that dissipates into the night. Buffy sniffs at the same bushes she usually does, lit by the orange glow of streetlights. There is the sound of local shops and restaurant with the bustle of life, but the four of them walk the short distance to the green space, Buffy holding on to Buffy, but with her trotting in front. Phil steers her around the puddles rather than through them as best he can, but she still gets wet feet as they walk. 

About half way through their route, Sophie takes the lead from Phil's hand and they walk ahead a bit, leaving Dan and PJ to walk a few paces behind them. 

"So," PJ starts. 

Dan's stomach sinks. He doesn't know exactly what is coming, but he's been waiting for Pj to say something ever since that strange look over their game. PJ isn't about to let him get away with whatever it is he feels need raising right now. 

"Everything cool with you?" 

"Yeah," Dan nods, "It's good." 

"Buffy is cute," PJ says, pointedly. 

"Yeah. Phil has a very cute dog. He's really happy about it, she's a nightmare sometimes but I think he's got it handled."

"Just Phil?" PJ says, "did I hear Phil called her your dog too?" 

Dan looks down and away. He's making such a big deal out of this in his head and he doesn't know why. He doesn't understand the way his stomach twists, how it feels like a secret he should be keeping. 

Okay, so maybe the whole sleeping situation isn't something he could say without it being misunderstood, and he would never want to give PJ the wrong impression of what is going on. Dan knows that it's nothing, but he can admit to himself that from the outside it might look a bit... strange. 

"Only in the same way that we refer to the Xbox as ours, or the coffee table," Dan screws his face up in the direction of the pavement. He doesn't like comparing buffy to any other possession. "She's Phil's dog. Not mine." 

"Cool," PJ shrugs, accepting that in the easy way that he has. 

Dan's always like that about PJ. He doesn't push things that Dan shies away from, he's happy to accept all circumstances once they're explained to him. Even if he doesn't really get it, which he might not in this instance, he isn't one to pick a fight over it, or push it past the point of being comfortable. 

He does, however, have an uncanny knack of picking up minute changes, of watching you with a keen eye and a sensitivity for slight adjustments. It makes him a great friend, and wonderful to have around in a tricky, awkward situation, but it does mean he asks inconvenient questions every now and again.

"You guys seem different," PJ muses.

"We do?" 

"Yeah. Not in a bad way, just... I dunno." 

"Tour was a harrowing time," Dan says, laughing, "we've seen too much. We're scarred for life." 

PJ laughs along with him, once again taking a step back from that perilous edge of dangerous, uncomfortable conversation. 

"Must be that," he says. 

Dan hadn't thought about what would happen at bedtime. It hadn't even occurred to him that he would feel weird about it, but once they've finished walking Buffy, eaten sushi, and then whiled away the rest of the evening playing multiplayer games on various consoles, Dan is suddenly faced with the very real and alarming reality that they can't continue their current arrangement with other people in the house. 

PJ and Sophie start yawning around one in the morning, and Phil agrees that it's probably time for bed. They've been going to bed earlier recently too, because Buffy is awake so early, and she's currently snoozing with her head on Dan's lap and jumping every time one of them makes too loud of a noise. 

It's mostly been Dan making the noise, but he doesn't want to take all of the blame. 

Phil is on the other side of Buffy and he looks tired as well. He drops his head onto the back of the couch, angled in Dan's direction, and shuts his eyes. 

"Bed time," Dan says, to the group. 

Phil's eyes flicker open and Dan thinks that he can read some kind of expression there, but he isn't entirely sure what it could mean. Maybe he hadn't thought about this bit either, and it's only just occurring to him. 

Dan gets up to clear away drinks glasses and plates and everything else while Phil shows PJ and Sophie to their room and points out all of the bathroom facilities, gets them towels, and shows them how to use the shower. Dan muses, loading things into the dishwasher, that they've become much more mature and domestic as time has gone on. It used to be that when friends stayed round they'd be loud and excitable into the early hours and then go to bed leaving the mess to be dealt with in the morning and their friends to find their own way around. 

Dan can't say that he minds the quieter way they live now. It's a lot more peaceful, and Dan doesn't feel as anxious with people in the house when they've hosted them properly. It helps that they've known PJ and Sophie for so long, and it's even calmer with other people they hang out with a lot. 

But still, Dan can recognise the improvement. 

Once he's cleaned up, Dan goes down the stairs to find Phil exiting his bedroom with his toothbrush in his hand. 

"Sorry," Phil says, "I just had to…" 

He waves the toothbrush in the air in explanation. Buffy is sniffing around the hallway, and Dan can hear the sounds of PJ and Sophie shuffling about in their room, so Dan doesn't say everything he wants to. He doesn't acknowledge the sad sinking feeling he gets knowing Phil's toothbrush is no longer in that black cup on his sink. 

He's not sure he'd think about that even if they were alone though, to be honest. 

"Sure," he says, "good night." 

Phil goes to his own room. He leaves the door ajar because Buffy hasn't yet cottoned on to what is happening so she doesn't follow him straight away. As far as she is concerned, nothing is different. Even though to Dan, the evening has become stilted and awkward. 

He brushes his teeth in silence. There is no one to bump out of the way, no PHil to catch his eye in the mirror and make stupid sudsy faces at. He gets changed right in the middle of his bedroom floor because he can, and before he knows it, it's time to turn out the light and get into his own bed. Alone. 

It's massive. How had he never realised how big his bed is before? He moves over to the middle, thumps his pillow a couple of times in an attempt to plump it up, and sinks his head down, duvet up to his chin, trying to get comfortable. 

He closes his eyes, and listens to the soft pad of Buffy's feet on the laminate flooring. She comes into the room, hops up on the bed as she always does, and is halfway to laying down on his feet when she must notice a problem. 

She gets right back up again, sniffing at Dan's legs and looking at him with her head cocked. 

"Things are different tonight, B. Okay?" 

She doesn't understand. She jumps off the bed and exits his room, on the hunt for Phil. Dan can hear her walk across the hall to Phil's bedroom and the low timbre of Phil's voice talking to her. He does hear what Phil says, but it can't have worked because a few seconds later Buffy is back in his room whining softly from his doorway. 

"Go see your dad, B," Dan says. 

Buffy barks at him. She's getting older all the time, and what used to be quiet puppy yaps are now almost full-blown barks. The sound echoes around not only Dan's room but also the hallway, and Buffy runs off to give Phil's room the same treatment. 

She barks some more, whining and scratching at Phil's door even thought Dan knows that it's open. 

Down the hall, another door opens. 

"Everything okay?" PJ calls. 

There is movement across the hall and Phil's bare feet make soft padding sounds on the floor. "It's fine, Peej," Phil says, "she's just fussing about. I'll sort it." 

"She's not mad about us being here, is she?" 

Phil laughs good naturedly, "No, you're cool. She probably just wants feeding a bit more or something." 

"Alright," PJ says, "night, Phil." 

"Night." 

Buffy barks one more time and then, in a way Dan thinks he was probably expecting, Phil walks slowly and quietly into his room. His lights are off, and it's dark save for the moonlight coming in around his blinds. Everything has lost its colour. His room is fairly monochrome as it is, but even Phil looks desaturated in the dim light. He has on pyjama pants that Dan knows for a fact are bright green, but it's hard to pick out in this lighting. 

"Hey," Phil says. 

Buffy pushes past his legs, walking into the room and up onto Dan's bed like she always does. She won't sit down, he looks at Phil and sniffs at the mound of Dan's body under the duvet and waits, expectantly. 

"This is probably a stupid idea," Dan says. 

He isn't looking at Phil anymore. He's saying it to the ceiling, unsure whether he means tonight in particular. 

Phil walks in a little further and decidedly closes the door behind him with a soft click. 

"They're going to notice," Dan says. 

Phil doesn't respond. He simply makes his way to the bed and lifts the duvet. Cold air trickles in underneath it and Dan shivers. 

At their feet, Buffy walks in a circle twice before dropping down into the space between their feet. Phil turns on his side, and curls his legs up so that his knee is pressed into the side of Dan's thigh. He doesn't move away. 

"Phil," Dan says, irritably, "I'm talking to you." 

Phil sighs softly. They're both keeping their voices low, they know the sound might carry and they don't want to give too much indication to their guests that they're having an extended conversation. They don't talk about that, but it's an unspoken agreement. 

"You're saying things," Phil says, "none of them interest me." 

"So you're not bothered if PJ and Sophie see that you're sleeping in here?" 

Phil's eyes had been closed, trying to go to sleep despite Dan's insistence on talking, but they flick open now and fixed Dan with a stare that might mean an argument was incoming in any other context. 

"Not really," Phil says. 

Dan clenches his jaw and bites down on the back of his tongue. He balls his hand into a fist by his side and shoves down everything he wants to say to that. Mostly it's surprise, or maybe incredulity, at Phil's blasé attitude towards all of this. He has been all along, and maybe Dan was complicit, but he didn't think he'd have to stretch his passivity to flaunting their quirky arrangement to their house guests. 

Phil lifts his head, rearranges his pillow, and then drops back down onto it. Buffy stirs at their feet for a second, looking up to check that everything is going to stay as it is. She looks like she'd be perfectly happy to start barking again if she doesn't get what she wants. 

"They won't find out," Phil says. "I'll leave in the morning before they get up. Okay?" 

He doesn't sound happy. There is a hard edge to his voice, his words clipped around their perimeter. 

Dan hums. He wonders what he would say to PJ or Sophie if they did find Phil in here, what explanation would he give for his presence? 

"It's the only way we're going to get her to sleep," Phil continues when Dan doesn't answer. 

"Alright," Dan agrees, still speaking to the ceiling. 

Despite his feelings about what it might look like, despite how conflicted he feels about this whole thing, and the creeping sensation that it might be time to start doing something about this, Dan finds comfort in the delicate touch of Phil's knee to his thigh. It grounds him, and the rhythmic cadence of Phil's breathing is a melodic lullaby that lulls him to sleep.


	9. Chapter Nine

Dan is woken by the sound of Buffy growling softly and a door closing down the hall. Phil's head is resting on the corner of his pillow, and he's pressed along the length of Dan's body.

It's still strange enough to feel awkward, still makes him feel weird and conflicted at how not-weird it feels at the same time. As sleep slides off him slowly, he doesn't have time to confront his inner turmoil, not when their guests are waking and Phil is _still here._

He deals with Buffy first, sleepily reaching out to her and making shushing noises until she stops, flopping down again and laying her chin over his thigh. 

Then once she's quiet and unlikely to wake the entire house, or draw attention their way, he deals with Phil. 

"Phil," Dan whispers, urgently.

Phil presses his face into the fabric of the pillow and groans. "No," he says, muffled. 

"Phil, they're up. You have to go back to your own room." 

Phil's eyes meet his suddenly, a hard edge beyond the blue of his irises. 

"You're making me sneak out?" 

"You said you would," Dan says, "it was your idea!" 

Phil rolls onto his back, taking his body heat with him. He runs a tired hand over this face and then, all jerky movements and huffed breathing, he gets out of the bed. 

To Buffy, this is simply the morning routine starting early. Breakfast time. She stands and jumps down off the bed to follow Phil. 

Phil pauses at the door.

"What are you doing?" Dan asks. 

"Checking for noise," Phil says. Dan could swear he rolls his eyes. 

They are both silent for a moment, listening out for anything happening beyond the room. When nothing apparent happens, Phil opens the door. 

"Phil," Dan says again. 

Phil looks at him, already halfway out of the room. 

"I'm sorry, okay?" 

Dan doesn't know why he's apologising. It was Phil's idea to sneak out, and it's not like Phil wants PJ and Sophie to get the wrong idea either, but something feels weird and contorted with the situation anyway. 

He wants Phil to stay, just to see what would happen. Not that he could find a way to express that to Phil without sounding like a complete twat.

"It's fine," Phil says, his tone conveying that it is decidedly not fine. 

Dan tries to protest, to push the issue further, but no sooner has he opened his mouth to form the argument, Phil opens the door to his room and leaves, Buffy following at his heels. 

"Hey Phil," PJ's voice sounds in the hallway, and Dan pulls the duvet up over his head and groans. 

He doesn't emerge for a while. 

It's possible he's building it up in his head in that way that he has, but even the thought of what PJ's reaction is enough to drive him deeper into his covers with every passing second. 

He hears the sounds of Phil rattling around outside in the hall, putting his shoes on and Buffy yapping. He's going to take Buffy out for a walk by himself. Dan isn't going with him. 

For some reason it is this, more than anything else, that finally makes him get out of bed. 

"Are you taking her out?" he says. 

Phil is startled by his voice, jumping into the turn to face him. "Ah! Dan!" 

"Sorry," Dan says, "Are you taking Buffy out?" 

"Yeah. Peej and Soph are in the kitchen with coffee. I'm going to take her round, will you go and hang out with our guests, please?" 

That hits Dan in the gut. He feels chided, like Phil is telling him off for being a petulant teenager and staying in his bedroom. He has to take a breath and remind himself that he's in his late twenties and he can have a lie in if he wants to.

Phil just shakes his head at Dan's scowl and turns towards the door. 

"Phil," Dan says. 

Phil doesn't turn back to him, but he does pause. 

"Can we talk about this later? When everyone is gone?" 

Phil shrugs, just one shoulder. "If you want."

"I do want," Dan insists. "If you want to."

Phil turns to look at him, face a bit softer than Dan expects it to be. "Yeah Dan, alright. We can talk about it later. I want to, alright?" 

Phil's reaction makes Dan realise how insistent he'd sounded, how worried. He is worried. Phil seems… not mad, exactly, but something. And Dan is confused enough that he thinks it might warrant a conversation. 

When Phil and Buffy leave, Dan takes a deep breath and finds their guests in the kitchen. Sophie is polite with a brightly offered good morning, and PJ smiles at him, bit Dan doesn't miss the way PJs eyes don't leave when they should, the half-crooked smile in the corner of his mouth. 

He suffers through some soft, quiet chit chat, and then Sopgie says she's going to pack their bags,giving PJ a kiss on the cheek as she passes them, a knowing look in her eyes that Dan has to look away from. 

"Are you okay?' PJ asks him when she's gone.

"Sure," Dan says, "why wouldn't I be?" 

PJ lifts his brows sarcastically, but the expression melts into something more earnest when Dan doesn't respond. "Oh," he says, "we're playing it like that." 

"Like what?" 

"Like I didn't see Phil coming out of your room this morning." 

The bottom drops out of Dan's stomach. He'd expected the awkward small talk, dancing around it until they eventually left and Dan could finally breathe again, he'd expect maybe a pointed joke or something. He hadn't expected PJ to come right out and say it. 

"It's not--" Dan says. 

"Sure," PJ says, cutting him off. "It's not what it looks like. You don't have to tell me anything, I'm not... I'm not asking you to tell me anything. It's your business. It's just that you look like a deer in headlights, and Phil looked like he really didn't want to be leaving. I just want to say that... it's okay, Dan. Even if it's not what it looks like, whatever it is, it's okay." 

"Phil looked—" Dan shakes his head. 

"Oh," PJ says. Dan hates that, hates that PJ might know something he isn't ready to share. "Well, that's what it looked like to me, anyway." 

Dan swallows down the many, many questions he has and shakes his head. 

"Fine," PJ says, standing up from his seat at the dining table and draining the last of his coffee from the mug in front of him. "That's fine, Dan. I'm not pushing you to say anything. But... you know it's all cool, right? Whatever it is." 

"It's cool?" Dan asks, "even if you don't really know what it is, or if there is anything to know?" 

"Exactly," PJ says, punching Dan lightly in the arm, "that's the point." 

Sometimes PJ talks in riddles. Riddles that sound like they're full of wisdom, when maybe they're just complete nonsense. Either way, there is too much in Dan's head for him to question it, and he suspects that it's best left alone anyway lest he reveal more than he wants to. 

It's just all too difficult to explain. There's nothing really to tell, he and Phil are the same as they always are it's just that they've got this ridiculous dog that won't let them sleep apart and-- 

It sounds ridiculous even when Dan says it to himself. 

"I should go actually pack our stuff. I suspect Soph is just hiding out."

"She didn't have to—" Dan sighs. "It really isn't that big of a deal."

"I agree," PJ says, "Still, doesn't mean you'd want to be outnumbered in your own kitchen."

They are kind, good friends who have been around for ages and understand. While it's not like they're best friends, they see each other every few months and there is more of a work connection than anything else, PJ and Sophie are still good people. Dan isn't hesitating in telling them because he thinks they'll judge him, he's just not even sure what he'd say. Besides, it's not just his thing to tell.

PJ leaves him in the kitchen with his own thoughts and makes himself busy with the task of getting their things together so they can leave to get their train. Visits are always shorter than Dan would like them to be on the one hand, but he also can't deny how nice it will be to have his own space back. 

Their space. His and Phil's. 

The front door opens downstairs and Dan feels nerves swirl in the bottom of his stomach. 

Phil and PJ are talking downstairs and then Phil is shouting for him to come down because they're leaving. He's been a poor host all morning, he definitely could have spent some more time with them, he knew they had to leave early, but it's done now. He hopes they won't think too badly of him. 

Buffy jumps when she sees him, nearly knocking him over with the force of hurling herself into his legs. 

"Alright, B," he says, "calm down, you were only gone for a little bit." 

He ruffles the fur on the top of her head and receives a wet lick to his palm in return. When he looks up PJ is grinning, and Phil is watching him with a line between his brows. Sophie giggles, and Dan turns to see her holding her phone up. 

"You are precious," she says, and Dan is only mostly sure she's talking to Buffy. 

When they leave, Phil keeps looking at him like that. 

"What?" Dan says. 

He sounds more accusatory than he'd like. 

"Nothing," Phil says. 

Phil heads into Dan's bedroom and Dan drops to sit on the bottom step of the stairs. Buffy looks in Phil's direction for a second but then decides Dan is a much better bet for some attention and barrels over to him. 

She pushes her wet nose against his hand and Dan slides his fingers into her fur. 

"Well, B," he says, not bothering to keep his voice down, "I think I fucked up. Somehow." 

Buffy wags her tail at him. 

"You didn't fuck up." 

Phil's voice calls from his room and Dan rises to his feet, Buffy on his heels. Phil is reclined on his bed, the sight so jarring that Dan comes to a full stop in the doorway. 

"Are we okay?" Dan asks. 

"I should be asking you that," Phil says. 

Buffy jumps up on the bed and Phil reaches out for her, effortless, like a habit. Dan wonders whether, if he laid down next to Phil, would Phil reach out to him with just as much habit. 

"I want us to be okay," Dan says 

Phil sits up a bit straighter, pressing a hand into the pillow and then resting his shoulder blades against the headboard. 

He looks at Dan likes he's trying to work out what's going on, like he's lost the thread of the conversation. Dan might have too, somewhere along the line. 

Dan sighs, hating that this is suddenly so complicated when it doesn't have to be. 

"It was your idea to leave." Dan says. Phil opens his mouth, but Dan doesn't let him respond. "It was. But I get that you're annoyed about that or something."

"Not… annoyed," Phil says. 

"But something," Dan insists. "And I know we haven't like, talked about this stuff because honestly I didn't think there was anything to talk about. But, I suppose I thought we were on the same page about not…"

"Not what?" 

"Not talking to other people about it either. Or…" Dan gives in and sits on the bed. Buffy rolls onto her back and Dan scratches at the fluff of her belly. "I just don't think they'd understand. And then there's a bunch of questions that are just gunna be awkward, right?" 

Phil stops stroking Buffy's ears and chews on the side of his thumb nail. 

"I know what you mean," Phil says after a while, "but I dont think theres anything wrong with what we're—" 

"No," Dan says, because he can't stand Phil thinking that. Phil is sitting on Dan's bed and not his own, even when they've had a disagreement. It's like he belongs here and Dan - in a way that he's stopped questioning - wants him to stay. "That isn't what I meant."

"You just seemed so pissed off this morning, like you just wanted to shove me out the door, like it was… something awful."

Dan shakes his head. He lays down on the length of the bed, Phil above him now. His head sinks into the pillow and Buffy's body rolls so press against him, warm and comfortable except for her foot jabbing him in the thigh. 

"I didn't want you to leave."

Dan whispers the words to the ceiling like a confession.

"You didn't?" 

"No." 

Dan shifts, turns on his side to face Phil, who slinks down so that they are level, Buffy between them. She makes an elongated sighing sound, like she's the most content she's ever been. 

Dan can't blame her.

Phil is laying on his pillow, the one Dan thinks of as being his. His glasses aren't on the bedside table because they're on his nose, having not put his contacts in, but all the same it's just as it always is. Cosy, quiet, comfortable.

"I… never do. Really." Dan hears Phil suck in a breath and he has to look away, down at Buffy, because he can't stand to know what the look on Phil's face might be. "Which I know is weird. But I'm just an awkward nerd who craves human contact but actually can't stand most people."

"And not me?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Dan says around an incredulous laugh. He looks up, sharply, meeting Phil's gaze which is just as intense as he'd thought it would be. "Almost ten years of hanging out with me and you have to ask that? Of course not you, you don't count."

"Everyone else is boring," Phil says, which sets off one of those memories in Dan's head, the ones he knows are always there but that he doesn't talk about often. "But you're different."

"Something like that," Dan agrees. 

Phil smiles at him, and Dan can't help but grin back. 

"So what now?" Phil asks. "What do you want to do for the rest of the day?" 

_Stay here_ , Dan thinks. "Whatever you want," he says. 

Phil shrugs. Buffy snorts through her nose, Dan reckons she's probably falling asleep.

"Can we have a do-over?" Dan asks, suddenly.

"A do-over?" 

"Of this morning," Dan explains. "Stay."

The corner of Phil's mouth twitches and he rearranges his head so that it's closer, nearer to the edge of Dan's pillow like it always is when they wake up. "Alright" he says, "I'll stay."


	10. Chapter Ten

Dan is surprised he wakes up first given that today is the day Dan has agreed they can decorate for christmas. Actuall decorate, not the small pieces of tinsel and festive candles Phil has snuck into the flat when he's not looking. 

Dan is warm. Snuggled under the duvet, Buffy draped over his feet. But mostly, he's warm all down one side, and across his middle, where Phil is holding him. In the creeping way that's been happening most mornings, Dan doesn't want to move, and he thinks that perhaps he can get away with a few more seconds of this warmth, this comfort, before he has to snuffle out from under Phil's arm and act like it hadn't happened in the first place. 

"Morning," Phil says. 

Dan had been distracted with this, with how nice it felt to be held by Phil and not feel like he needs to pull away, that he's missed the point when Phil's eyes fluttered open. Now he's looking at Dan. 

He's looking at Dan and he isn't moving. 

"Morning," Dan manages. 

Phil smiles, his whole face lighting up. Dan can't be much more than a blur, because Phil's glasses are still on the corner of the bedside table where they always are these days, but he's smiling at Dan like he's pleased to see him anyway. 

"Decorating day," Phil tells him. 

"Yeah." 

Dan is also smiling like an idiot. It should be odd that they're having this conversation while they're twined together like this, but it isn't. Phil's ankle is pushed up against his, and his arms are firmly around Dan's body, unmistakably holding him in an embrace, but Dan doesn't feel anything other than a passing acknowledgement of how it isn't something they've done before. 

And Phil still isn't moving. 

"Almost seems a shame to decorate when you're leaving in a couple of weeks," Dan tells him. He's not sure he really meant to say that, but the thought has been swirling around in his head for a while and for some reason the warm limbs all around him have lowered his defences. 

"I was thinking about that, actually," Phil says. 

Dan crooks an eyebrow at him. Buffy takes that moment to notice they are awake and stands up over Dan's feet, and Phil's by extension. She pads up the bed and situates herself between the two of them, Dan getting a mouthful of fur from her wagging tail in his mouth as a result. 

He splutters and Phil rolls away. He's still pressed close, the collective warmth of their bodies mingled together under the duvet, but he isn't holding Dan anymore. Dan tries not to feel too disappointed about it. 

"You were?" Dan says, trying to pick the conversation up from where they left it, Buffy trying all the while to get closer to Phil.

"Hm," Phil hums, scratching Buffy behind the ear while reaching over to slide his glasses onto his nose, blinking as things come into focus. He readjusts his pillow, sinking a fist into it and leaning back against it again. 

"What, then?" Dan laughs, "you're keeping us in suspense."

Buffy wags her tail like she agrees with him. 

"Well," Phil says, and Dan gets the sneaking suspicion that he sounds hesitant, almost nervous. "I was thinking about how Buffy would probably go a bit nuts if we were apart for all of Christmas, so I wondered if you wanted to come with me."

"I can't spend Christmas with you," Dan says. 

"Not all of it," Phil agrees, "maybe until Christmas eve? I have to get the ferry over because they won't let Buffy on a plane, but you could fly back." 

Dan is silent for a moment, mulling it over. They haven't spent a Christmas eve together since… well, not for a long time. "Do you think your parents would mind?"

"Are you kidding? Kath and Nigel have asked you to come over every Christmas in recent memory. It's you that keeps saying no."

"Because… you know why. Because of how it looks."

"Yeah, but now we have a built in excuse." 

Phil looks down at Buffy, stroking her softly as she flips down between them, seemingly happy to stay like that until one of them gets up to feed her. 

"I guess," Dan says, wondering if the excuse might not only be other people. 

Dan strokes his hand over Buffy's head, and she snorts softly. Lifting her eyes to him, her mouth falling open. 

"Okay B," Dan says, "breakfast." 

He rolls out of bed, Buffy hot on his heels. The air is chilly, a shock to his system now that he's away from Phil's body heat. He picks a hoodie up off the floor and pulls it over his head, realising too late that it's Phil's. 

"Dan?" Phil says, his voice following Dan out of the door. He raises the volume, so Dan can still hear as he ascends the stairs to the kitchen, "are you coming for Christmas?" 

"Maybe," Dan calls back, smiling to himself because there is only Buffy to hear him and he doesn't think she would tell anyone.

Phil joins him in the kitchen ten minutes later, hair wet from the shower, contacts in. 

"Nice jumper," Dan says, handing him a bowl of cereal and a steaming mug of coffee. 

In the corner, Buffy's collar clinks off the side of her food bowl. 

"You stole mine," Phil says, nodding down to the hoodie Dan is wearing. 

Dan looks down too, but then shrugs. He doesn't point out that Phil has his own room just across the hall with an entire wardrobe full of jumpers of his very own, but that's only because the black of his own jumper contrasts so nicely against Phil's skin, and it hangs loosely over his waist in a pleasant way. 

Instead, he leaves Phil in the kitchen, having eaten his breakfast while Phil was in the shower, and goes to get himself ready for the day. 

After, when he emerges back to the lounge, he is showered and reluctantly no longer wearing Phil's hoodie. He had left it in his own room though, looped over the top of the mirror, because Phil spends more time in there than he does his own room these days, and he might get cold. 

Phil has a box of christmas decorations open on the floor and Buffy is sniffing around them excitedly. 

"The tree isn't even here yet."

"I know," Phil says, pulling the stuffed polar bear ornament out of Buffy's grasp lest she mistake it for a toy, "but I'm excited."

Dan chuckles at them both, shaking his head. It comes out all fond and stupid so he attempts to make his face neutral and not think about lingering cuddles as he sits down on the couch. 

"When is it getting here?" 

"Not until later.' 

"Want to take Buffy out before then?" 

Buffy's ears prick up, as though she knows what Dan has just said, and suddenly the decorations aren't as interesting anymore. Not when the prospect of a trip outside is available. 

"You're just trying to distract me from decorating."

"I swear I'm not," Dan laughs, "god help me but I think I've gotten used to the exercise. Feels weird if we don't go."

Phil is holding the polar bear ornament in his hand, head cocked to the side. He looks happy, peaceful, holding something that has seen countless Christmases right the way back to that first one in Phil's flat. That had been Phil's tree, not Dan's, but Phil had said that he'd share it with him because Dan couldn't put one up in halls. Dan doesn't know if those ornaments, the polar bear and the matching penguin, belonged to Phil - though he assumes they must have - or to him, but Phil always acted like they belonged to both of them, the whole tree did. 

In some ways, the whole flat did. Dan was always welcome there, Phil never tired of him or made him go back to halls. He let Dan in every time he knocked, even when Dan was sullen and grumpy and not at all good company. 

Phil made him scrambled eggs anyway, and made space for him on the couch. 

It all floods back to him with just one glance at the tiny, white polar bear. 

"I suppose it does," Phil says, and Dan has to think back to remember the last thing he said. 

"What have we become?" He replies, dramatically, standing up and brushing off the weird mood he finds himself in this morning. 

"Responsible dog parents," Phil says. 

Dan can't conjure up a response to that, but Phil rises none too gracefully from the floor, and Buffy follows him down the stairs. 

"Slow poke," Phil says when Dan reaches him again. He's got Buffy's lead on already and he's holding Dan's coat out for him. 

"Sorry," Dan says, shrugging into it. 

The day is cold. Winter is definitely here and it bites at Dan's cheeks. The ground is wet from rain, puddles mapping the edges of the walkway that they take and they have to pick their way around them. 

"I meant what I said about Christmas," Phil says, about a quarter of the way around. 

"What?" 

"Christmas," Phil says, "you coming with me. And Buffy." 

"Oh."

"I mean… you don't have to." 

"It's not that I don't want to—" 

Dan's words are interrupted by a cyclist coming down alongside them. He's going a touch too fast, and while Buffy is safely out of the way, Dan is standing in the path of a giant puddle, at risk of being soaked head to toe. 

Phil spots it first, and before Dan knows what is going on, Phil has grabbed his hand, pulling him out of the spray. 

"Wha--" Dan says, stumbling just as the wave of water drenches the spot where he'd just been standing. "Jesus."

"That was a close one," Phil says. 

Buffy barks after the cyclist and pulls on her lead. Phil's shoulder jerks, but instead of letting go of where their hands are joined, Dan firms his grip and holds him steady. 

Phil's fingers are long, and cold from the chill in the air, but they're warming up in Dan's grasp and he doesn't want to let go just yet. Not if he doesn't have to. 

Phil seems perfectly content to prolong it, or he just doesn't notice, because he turns them back to their walk and he doesn't let go of Dan's hand. His fingers get warmer, his skin soft.

Dan is conscious of his hand the entire time. Is his grip too tight? Too loose? What if his palm gets sweaty, or what if Phil wants to let go but he doesn't know how to bring it up? 

"I'll come," Dan says, trying to tear his thoughts away and just… talk about something else. 

"Hm?" 

"Christmas," Dan says, "I'll come for Christmas."

"Great," Phil says, "I'll tell mum." 

"She doesn't need to go to any extra trouble," Dan says, "I don't have to stay until Christmas eve if it's too long."

"I told you," Phil says, and he punctuates it by squeezing Dan's hand gently, "she'll be dead happy you're coming. She always makes way too many cakes." 

Dan smiles at him, warmly. It might be nice, actually, he imagines the Lester family Christmas as a warm thing, something fitting of the season, joy and laughter. A little unlike his own experience, which isn't awful, but it just isn't as magical as Phil always makes his Christmases out to be. Dan is kind of intrigued about getting to experience a little bit of it. 

They complete their usual lap. Buffy sniffs at all the same bushes as if they are new, they avoid any mild puddle-related disasters, and Phil doesn't let go of his hand until they step back in through the main door to their apartment block. 

Dan keeps feeling the ghost of Phil's hand all day. 

The tree arrives a few hours later, a huge thing that fills up one corner of the living room and takes them a couple of hours to decorate. Phil insists on the Christmas playlist he's been refining over the years, the one with Mariah Carey on it no less that four times, and Buffy doesn't try to attack the tree on sight, so all in all Dan counts it as a win. 

She does sniff around the bottom, eyeing it skeptically as if she isn't quite sure what to make of it. 

"It's a Christmas tree," Phil tells her in a patient, soft voice, "not a tree for having a wee against, okay?" 

Dan wants to point out that Buffy can't possibly understand Phil, but Phil is smiling and singing along to Christmas music and it's all so lovely that Dan doesn't want to ruin the moment. 

He's going to Phil's for Christmas. He gets to have this lovely moment for a lot longer. 

Dan makes them hot chocolate before they go to bed. He puts in the marshmallows he's been hiding from Phil and they drink them in bed, wearing pyjamas under the warm glow of a bedside lamp. Phil has his glasses on, and Buffy is in position at the bottom of the bed. 

The whole day feels calm, and peaceful. It makes something bubble up in the pit of Dan's stomach, something like fear, because he might get this for a bit longer, he might get it over Christmas and in ways he hadn't envisioned, but one look at how calm and collected Buffy is these days tells him that it can't possibly be forever. 

This whole thing has an expiration date, as it rightly should, but Dan is beginning to wonder whether he's as okay with that as he had initially thought.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Dan doesn't know how they get on to the subject. He's comfortably warm, a touch too much so, on the soft plush of the Lester's couch. He has a glass of red wine in one hand and is concentrating on not spilling it even as his vision blurs around the edges. 

There isn't any space for Buffy on the couch, but she's curled around their feet, half on his and half on Phil's. A pleasant lump of fur, he can feel the rise and fall of her breathing as she has slipped into a snooze.

His cheeks feel hot with the drink, the roof of his mouth a little dry with the sharp sweetness of the wine. The inside of his lips are probably stained a deep purple but he doesn't care. He's drunk, happy, floating a bit on how peaceful all of this is. 

The television is on, tuned to some music channel playing songs Dan recognises only as being old, and every now and again Kath and Nigel will catch each other's eyes and smile fondly, sharing a secret memory no one else is privy to. Which, given that this room contains their children, is probably for the best. 

He doesn't know when he got comfortable with being part of this group. He hadn't at first, had always felt a little stilted and off, trying to be on his best behaviour. He still does that occasionally, but mostly just to wind up Phil. Nowadays he's less ceremonial about his standing in the Lester clan, he fits easily into the companionship of his best friend's family and he counts himself lucky to be a part of it. 

Kath is laughing at something Phil said. He's sat next to Dan, pressed against him from shoulder to hip but with his legs wide, one ankle on the opposite knee. 

Dan's own legs are just set on the floor, happy to feel the warmth of Buffy's belly where she's stretched out across them, her chin on Phil's foot.

"Oh you boys should both visit at the same time more often," Kath says to her sons. 

She too is a little sideways with the wine. They all are. A bottle with dinner had become another one over charades and then another as Martyn argued that Dan and Phil weren't allowed to be on the same team for that game anymore. It's an argument he's tried before but they somehow forget the next time they're all together. 

Dan wonders when he started thinking of this group as being 'all together'. This is Kath and Nigel's house, their sons are here and Cornelia is perched on Martyn's lap on the other end of the couch and then there's Dan. But he doesn't feel out of place, he hasn't for years. 

"You both as well," Kath says, pointing a single finger between Dan and Cornelia. "I like having all my family in one place."

Dan feels his stomach flip over a bit at that. He's drunk, and maybe a bit emotional, but hearing Kath call him family is nice. Warm. He looks over at Phil to see what he thinks but his friend's eyes are a little glazed so he can't really be sure that comment resonated with him at all. 

"My boys are too old," Kath continues. "Doesn't it make you feel old?" 

She's turned to Nigel now, who nods and sips from his wine glass. He tends to lose a bit of speech when he gets tispy, his face turns slightly pink in the cheeks. Kind of like Phil, Dan notes. 

"Oh well at least both of you are happy and settled," she says and then pauses, shaking her head to herself. "Well… you know what I mean." 

Martyn laughs. His voice is a bit too loud and he jostles Cornelia, balanced on the edge of his knees, and he wraps his arm a bit more securely around her waist. She strokes a delicate hand over the back of his neck in what looks like a practised gesture. She's smiling, a small thing hanging on her mouth like she knows secrets no one else does. 

"Phil isn't settled," Martyn says, "He's single." 

"You know what I mean," Kath says, tutting.

"Nah," Martyn continues in that good-natured big brother way. "Little Philly isn't anywhere near settled. He's always jetting off around the world and doing stupid shit on the internet." 

Dan looks over at Phil, who is watching Martyn with his head tipped to the side. He looks like he's paying attention, mostly, but his eyes are still unfocussed and Dan suspects he isn't taking all of it in. Phil tends to get a bit detached once he's reached a certain level of drunk, mind reeling off into his own little world. Dan is used to it, he can usually coax him back or better yet get him to tell him the crazy shit he's thinking about. Either that, or push him towards his bed and make sure he has water for when he wakes up. 

That's if he isn't drunk too. 

They don't get drunk all that often. They've been absolutely smashed together in the past, they've been tipsy and sober and all variations thereof and Dan has seen Phil in all of those states. He's looked after him when he's sick, and Phil has rubbed his back when he's been the one to go too far, but they've been more sensible over the past few years, hangovers lasting longer now they're getting older.

Tonight just feels cosy, a pleasant float on wine's light wings, dreamlike and serene. There's nothing harsh in what Martyn is saying, and Phil hasn't taken it that way. 

"I like doing stupid shit on the internet," Phil says, shrugging in a way that suggests his limbs aren't obeying him at the moment, "it's fun." 

Dan nods, turning to Martyn him to back Phil up because, hell he's right there alongside him on the world tours and the doing stupid shit on the internet.

"I think…" says Nigel's voice, surprising not only Dan, who turns to look at him, but also Phil who Dan can feel jump slightly next to him.

Phil shifts in his seat and it presses them a bit closer together. Dan is suddenly aware of how warm he is, his skin heated where his bare arm is pressed against Dan's, possibly because of the excess alcohol coursing through his veins. 

"What do you think, Dad?" Phil says, he slides his eyes sideways to Martyn as if Nigel is about to prove his point or something.

"I think we thought that you two would settle down together," he says, gesturing between Dan and Phil with his wine glass. A heavy silence falls over the room. 

Dan tries to shuffle in his seat, for a second his immediate instinct is to pull away from Phil, to create some distance between them. That's his usual tactic, to go back to normal boundaries instead of whatever the strange lines are he has with Phil. 

He knows they're not the same as other people. He knows he relies on Phil too much and they've intertwined their lives a little bit too much, but he's fine with it. Phil's fine with it. He'd thought their friends and family were fine with it. He thought it was just the outside world that didn't get it, that tried to see it as more than it was, to slap some unnecessary label on it. 

He didn't expect it from Phil's dad. 

"You know," Nigel continues, "eventually." 

Kath reaches out to slide her hand overtop of Nigel's and squeeze gently. "Well love, I think we all thought that at one time or another." 

Dan daren't look over to see the expression on Phil's face. He can feel his cheeks heating up, the wine and the atmosphere already layered over him but now compounded with the revelation that Phil's parents have been waiting for… what? It's nonsense. 

"I know I did," Martyn joins in, and Dan looks over at him with a face of betrayal. _You too?_ he thinks. 

Cornelia laughs, a high pitched thing clearly coated in wine-drunk silliness. "Yeah," she slurs, "and me."

"You all just…" Dan says, trailing off. 

His fingers are tight around the stem of his wine glass and it feels fragile in his grip. The dark liquid cowering in the curve of it sloshes a little as he tries to loosen his fingers. 

He sees Phil's hand in the corner of his vision, fingers tapping against the side of his thigh. Dan turns to look up at him, curious to what he's thinking. 

Phil's mouth is tight at the corners, but pulled upward as if faintly amused by something. It is funny, Dan thinks, maybe he's just being sensitive.

Phil starts to laugh, the lines around his eyes crinkling. It's full bodied, his mouth stretching wide all teeth and tongue and he doesn't even try to hide it behind his hand. He isn't self conscious about it the way he sometimes is. Not here, not with these people. 

It doesn't take long for Dan to join in, laughing along with him at the thought that they'd all thought he and Phil would end up together. Because it is absurd. 

Isn't it?

"Surely you thought about it," Cornelia says. "Or talked about it at one point."

Her eyes are wide and innocent, but the question feels loaded with expectation. Do people really think that he and Phil sat down and talked about it? That one day they just had a conversation like "Do you fancy me?" "Nope, you fancy me?" "Nope."

Do friends do that? Is that what normal people do? 

There hadn't been any need to have that conversation. It had never been a question. At least, not before Buffy. Not before he started falling asleep next to Phil every night without question. Before the arm over his waist in the morning felt normal. 

He isn't thinking about the rest of it. The other things they definitely don't talk about. 

"Not really," Dan shrugs. 

"Really?" Martyn splutter, "With all those people talking about it all the time? I think I'd have at least had a conversation." 

The wine swirls in the glass and in his head and he just shrugs again, because he has very little to offer other than that. He knows Martyn isn't being judgmental, but it still feels like a reprimand. Like they should have talked about it before now. Before Buffy, before all of it. Years ago, when it had first come up.

Phil is silent beside him, too drunk or lost in thought to really say much. Dan doesn't look at him or nudge him to respond and Martyn doesn't seem overly expecting of an answer and so they let the topic go, move on to other things. Kath starts asking Cornelia about a recent art installation she went to and Dan fades out of the conversation. 

"I might turn in," Dan says a bit later, his glass drained, head heavy.

"You sure love?" Kath asks.

He nods, "I'm really tired actually." 

Phil looks up at him as he stands. For some reason Dan feels like he should ask him to come too, because that's what they do now. But he can't because they haven't explicitly talked about what the rules are here, how this will all play out.

Dan is sleeping on an inflatable mattress on the floor of Nigel's office. They'd offered to buy some more permanent furniture but Dan had insisted they didn't need to. It isn't like he comes round all that often and besides, when Martyn and Cornelia aren't here he can sleep in the second spare room. 

At least, he always had before.

He's still drunk as he changes into pyjamas. He has to put one hand on the back of the desk chair and hold himself steady. He's definitely overdone it. 

He pads to the bathroom in the dark. He knows the layout of this house so he doesn't need to turn on the hallway light, just walks through the dark, a hand extended to drag his fingertips against the wall. Just in case he falls. 

He washes his face. Brushes his teeth to scrub the taste of wine from his mouth so it doesn't wake up sour tomorrow morning. In the mirror his eyes are bloodshot but he looks otherwise okay. His pupils swim, a touch unfocused, definitely drunk, but it isn't atrocious. 

Back on the landing he makes a sharp, too-loud yelp as Martyn appears out of the dark, Dan's eyes not yet adjusted to the gloom after the bright white lights of the bathroom.

He's turned away at first, going into their room, but he twists on the spot to look at Dan when he yells.

"Fuck," Dan says, "you scared me mate."

"Sorry," Martyn laughs, obviously amused at Dan's fright. 

"No worries," Dan says, picking up his toiletries bag where he dropped it by his feet. "Night."

Dan shifts past him, still a bit uncoordinated but managing not to do something embarrassing like fall into him. 

"Hey," Martyn says, reaching out to stop him with a hand around his bicep. "What we said before…"

Dan crooks an eyebrow. The conversation is over, he has no idea why Martyn is lingering on it. 

Or why he is for that matter. 

"You know that it wasn't… we don't really think that."

"It's cool," Dan shrugs. 

"I was thinking about it and I think it's just because of how Phil used to talk about you in the beginning."

Dan chews his bottom lip and shrugs, which isn't a response in any way even though his mind is screaming at him to find out what exactly Phil had said back then. The urge is strong and he has to clamp his teeth down over the flesh, pressing a touch too hard, to stop himself from asking. He feels like he can't, like it would be invasive or that Martyn might take his wanting to know the wrong way. He's just interested in first impressions, what it was like from Phil's point of view. It's not like they revisit it often.

He'd thought it might have been about the dog, about seven years of shared houses and no plans to move. About co-owned furniture and everything that has built up over nine years of friendship. But it's not, it's about all the way back at the beginning.

"Look," Martyn continues, "I just want to say that. We aren't like sat here waiting for it to happen. We don't expect anything from you like…"

Like the ever present masses, Dan thinks. Like so many people in their lives who _do_ expect it. 

"Thanks," Dan says, his voice dropping to a whisper without him intending it to.

"But we wouldn't mind," Martyn continues, which makes Dan look him straight in the eye.

He feels a bit dizzy, Martyn is grinning at him and his hand squeezes Dan's shoulder in a familiar comforting way. Like a brother. 

"Just so you know," he says, "we'd all be… okay with it."

"Don't really…" Dan sighs, then laughs, then blinks. "Not sure what to do with that."

Martyn shakes his head, "nothing. I just wanted to say it. In case."

"I'm going to bed now," Dan announces, ducking out from under Martyn's hand and backing away down the hall.

"Night Dan," Martyn says, and disappears into his room.

It's an odd conversation to have with your best friend's brother. He wonders whether Martyn has ever said anything similar to Phil, about their family not minding. He wonders what Phil said in return. 

Dan sighs and climbs into the bed Kath has made up for him. It isn't like home, the sheets smell faintly familiar because Phil insists on buying the same brand of washing powder as his mum, but it isn't the same. 

He lies in the dark, staring at the ceiling, feeling his head swim and his vision blurs. He feels heavy, and sleep would take him if he let it, but there are thoughts running in his head. The bed feels big, empty. There is no familiar weight of Buffy over his feet, nothing evening out the mattress on the other side of it.

When did this all become so complicated? When did the feeling of Phil, the scent of him on their sheets, become something expected? They're friends, that's all they've ever been, and yet there is the faint push of something at the edge of his mind. Some long-forgotten memory of being eighteen and wondering, of not really knowing. 

It hadn't started then, had it? It doesn't go all the way back to the beginning. 

This will all be gone by morning. Maybe that's why he doesn't want to close his eyes. 

He stays there for what must be an hour. It could be longer, he doesn't know, the darkness and the night time makes everything feel static and paused, like the world has wound down to a stop as he ruminates on... what? He isn't even sure. 

He hears the Lesters settle. The soft shuffling of socked feet on carpet and the dull click of doors closing. The house descends into silence, warm silence that wraps around him like home. He finally closes his eyes and lets himself drift. 

"Dan," he hears, whispered into the dark, followed by a shift of the door opening. 

He isn't sure how much time has passed, whether he'd fallen asleep at all. 

"Phil?" he replies, his own voice a matching whisper. 

Buffy follows, skirting around Phil's feet, nearly knocking him over and taking the small step onto the mattress. She stays standing, looking over at Phil, waiting for him to join them.

He can see the vague outline of his friend in the dark. He watches, still and silent, as Phil makes his way across the room. He's swaying, clearly drunk, but he doesn't fall like Dan expects him to.

Instead he reaches the end of the inflatable mattress on the floor and drops down to crawl onto it. Dan has little time to shift out of the way before Phil is laying down next to him, turning his head on the pillow to catch his eyes in the gloom. 

Buffy seems satisfied that things are back to normal. She walks in a circle twice before flopping down into a comfortable position between their feet.

"Hi," Phil says. 

He rolls over, closer to where Dan is so that he can extend and arm and drape it over Dan's chest. He pushes his nose against the cotton of Dan's t-shirt over his bicep and inhales.

"You smell like home," he says.

"What are you doing?" Dan asks, ignoring that completely.

"Sleeping," Phil says

"You're pissed."

"So are you."

Dan sighs, "yeah."

The sound of Phil's breathing is comforting. In. out. His chest rises and falls and Dan can see it in the corner of his eye like a shadow shifting. He isn't scared, but his stomach feels knotted anyway. Possibly he's more drunk that he thought. 

"Are you staying here then?" Dan asks, without expectation. 

Phil lifts his head to look at him. Dan can barely see the dips and curve of his face. He can see that Phil has his glasses on, because he's ready for bed, and he knows if he looked hard enough he'd be able to pick out the blue-green-yellow of his eyes. But everything is a little blurry, and it's dim in the room despite the light from the night sky coming in through the thin curtains at the window. There is the glow of the computer monitor's standby light sending a green hue over the bottom half of his face but otherwise he is obscured. 

Dan knows him by heart anyway. 

"If that's okay," Phil says. "Buffy would miss you."

Dan closes his eyes, takes a breath to try and absorb that explanation, to make it true. He smiles into the dark of the room and feels the warmth of Phil next to him on a flimsy inflatable mattress that's probably too small for them. He resists the urge to tell him about the perfectly serviceable bed in the other room, that they don't have to settle for this unstable air mattress that's dipping in such a way that they are smushed together in the curve of it. 

"It's always okay," he says. He feels his chest contract and something flip over low in his belly. 

It feels like a confession, but Phil won't remember in the morning.

They don't say anything else. Dan reaches over to pluck the glasses from Phil's face, because he doesn't want to deal with the possibility of Phil waking up having broken them. He places them on the floor next to him and lets Phil's full weight lean against his arm.

Dan would stay awake and think a little more but his eyes feel heavy and the warmth of Phil's body is lulling him to sleep. He can't sleep without this, he thinks. It's one thing to wake up with Phil clinging to him, to ignore it in the morning like it didn't happen, or to linger in it once they are already there. It's another to do it purposefully, to let Phil touch him like this, to enjoy it.

He takes comfort, or perhaps solace, in the fact that with the wine swirling in both of their heads, this will all be gone by morning.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Dan isn't as hungover as he expects to be, which is a blessing considering he has a flight to get. 

Kath and Nigel seem quiet over breakfast, and Martyn is obnoxiously loud, Cornelia shushing him with a fond eye roll. 

Phil hadn't been there when Dan had woken up, which is probably for the best because he isn't sure if he could have dealt with waking up to Phil's arms still around him, not with how Phil had put them there intentionally. 

Dan finds him by the kettle, coffee already in his hand and another one waiting for Dan. 

"I was going to bring this upstairs," Phil says. 

Dan get a flash of Phil coming back to the bedroom with the coffee cup. He pictures Phil getting back into the bed, waking him up with the scent of coffee and moving back in close while they drank it side by side. Buffy sat between them. It hits him right in the gut and so he just hums over the cup and sips it, tasting the flavour on his tongue and ignoring the thoughts in his head.

Dan wonders if the others know where Phil slept last night, or if it would even matter. He doesn't know why it matters to him, but he can hear Nigel's voice in his head saying "you know, eventually" and he shivers.

"Alright?" Phil asks.

"I'm good," Dan nods. "Totally fine."

Phil smiles at him. He's a sight, his hair a riot of angles from lingering product and Dan reaches up to bat his hand at it, flattening it a bit.

"You're a mess," he says, quietly. 

Across the room, Nigel catches his eye and nods at him. Dan lowers his hand. 

"What time is your flight?" Kath asks.

"One," Phil supplies, reaching across Dan to snag a slice of toast from a plate on the side.

He smells like sleep, like the fabric softener they use here and at home. Dan inhales. He has a vivid flashback then, to last night, to Phil pushing his nose against Dan's arm and telling him he spelt like home. His hangover is weird this morning, he feels mostly fine, headache only very faint and most of it just waiting to be fixed with caffeine, but his emotions are bundled up in his throat. 

"Well we'll miss you," Kath says, "you're always welcome."

Dan has to swallow hard against the rise of that one. A Lester Christmas morning must be something to behold but he doesn't know if he could deal with waking up beside Phil for that. It's probably for the best he has to go home. 

"Thanks," he says, "my mum and grandparents will be by themselves if I don't go home. My brother is off places far away so I have to be the dutiful one and pay them a visit."

"We'll be back around my birthday though," Phil offers, "you'll see Dan then."

We. Kath smiles at both of them. A standing invitation, undiscussed and unconfirmed and yet here they are. 

"We walking Buffy before I go?" Dan asks. 

Phil nods, placing his empty coffee cup in the sink, and once again Nigel looks up at him with an odd expression on his face. 

When Dan goes back to the room to get dressed he stares at the unmade bed. Both sides of the duvet are flipped back where they both got out of bed, the pillow's have divots where their heads have been resting, but there is clearly more disturbance on one side than the other. Dan takes the duvet by each of the bottom corners and shakes it out flat. It doesn't make him feel any more settled in his stomach but it was worth a try.

They walk Buffy around the small road and out towards the fields. Phil lets the lead run wide the entire way because there is no one out here as far as the eye can see. 

They don't really talk. The morning is crisp, a little windy and cold but they're perfectly fine inside their coats. Dan thinks back to the last walk in the park at home, how Phil's hand had felt in his and he wonders if he could reach over and take Phil's hand now. What Phil would say if he did.

He's full of a lot of strange ideas these days. 

Phil keeps looking at him, and Dan pretends that he doesn't notice. It's easier, because if he does then Phil might make him talk about what happened last night. About the way they fell asleep. Phil was drunk, he threw his arms around Dan because he'd had a lot to drink but Dan doesn't want to explain why he let it happen.

Mostly because he doesn't know why.

Phil might make them talk about what Nigel said, or Dan might feel the need to tell him what Martyn said, and with the winter air nipping at the end of his nose, and Buffy zipping excitedly between bushes and grass and hedges she's never smelled before, Dan doesn't want to ruin it. He doesn't want to have to push through what is left of his hangover headache and come up with answers to all of that. 

It's Christmas. He just wants to let it be.

They make it back to the house without saying much. They clean off Buffy's paws like they always do and watch her go running around the hallway and into the kitchen to say hello to everyone, in case they forgot about her in the brief time they were gone.

"Attention whore," Dan jokes. 

Phil laughs and some of the tension breaks finally.

When it's time for Dan to go he gets down on his knees and Buffy rolls over to have her belly scratched. 

"Gunna miss you, you terror," he says to her. 

She barks at him, as if in reply, but he's not sure she really understands. 

"She'll miss you too," Phil says. 

Dan rises to his feet, "She'll be fine. It might be rough for a few nights but she'll get used to it." 

He doesn't miss the irony of that statement. That if they'd just done that in the beginning all of this would have been avoided. 

"She can Skype you," Phil says, a stupid grin on his face.

"Yeah?" 

Phil nods. "It'll be like…" 

Dan meets Phil's eyes and notices the slight tint of pink in his cheeks where he's blushing. 

"Like old times?" he says.

"Yeah."

Dan clears his throat and turns away from the look in Phil's eyes he can't identify. 

Nigel drives Dan to the airport. Phil sits in the front passenger seat and Dan in the back and there is a thick silence in the air. He thinks Nigel might want to say something, and Phil keeps glancing over at him as if expecting it, but it doesn't come. 

When he gets out of the car and thanks Nigel for the ride, Phil steps out too. He walks around the car and comes to stand in front of Dan. Closer, really, than he needs to be.

"See you at new years?" Phil says, "back at the flat?"

Dan nods, "yup."

He wants, oddly, to tell Phil he'll miss _him_ too, not just Buffy. He wants to say that he isn't looking forward to the wide expanse of the double bed in his mum's spare room without the comforting weight of Buffy near his feet. He wants to say that he's not sure he can sleep now without it, that waking up isn't the same unless the scent of Phil's shampoo is in his nose. His days won't feel right if he has to start them without it. 

He doesn't say any of this. Instead he extends the handle on his suitcase and pushes it back and forth on the pavement next to him. 

"See you," Phil says, again, but this time he leans forward. 

His arms slide over Dan's shoulders, pulling him forward, knocking him off balance. Dan is pulled in to a crushing hug and Phil clings to him, his head pushed into the space on his shoulder, tucked up close to his neck. He feels Phil breathe, his hot breath sliding over sensitive skin. Dan shivers, and lifts his arms to hug him back. 

It lasts a few seconds too long, and he daren't look over to the car to see what Nigel's expression might have to say about his reaction to it. 

Instead, he drops his arms, takes hold of his suitcase and tries not to look back over his shoulder and he walks in to the airport. 

"Merry Christmas!" Phil shouts at him.

Dan, despite himself, smiles widely before turning around to see Phil standing on the pavement, watching him leave. 

"Merry Christmas, Phil."

Hours later, when he's finally settling down into his mum's guest room - he refuses to think of it as his room because it hasn't been for a long time - the lingering sense of unease that comes with being back here settles in his bones, and he can still feel the faint press of Phil against him. 

After giving his mum a run down on his life over dinner, sparing as little detail as possible because that's just what he does, and she wouldn't understand anyway, he had suffered through some television with her, and let Colin sniff him all over for the lingering scent of Buffy. 

After, he'd brought Colin to his room, tried to get him to sleep on his feet because he misses the weight of Buffy. And that's where he is now, laying in the only-just-double bed with Colin on his feet and failing to fall asleep. He misses the dip in the mattress at his side where Phil usually is. He wants to text Phil, but he has no idea what he would say.

That he misses him? That it's weird to sleep without him now? 

That wouldn't do at all. What if Phil is blissfully asleep, starfished out on an actual bed now he doesn't have to share his space with Dan. What if this is the moment he realises he doesn't like sleeping next to Dan after all.

He closes his eyes and wills himself to sleep, but he can't stop thinking about their last hug at the airport. He can't remember the last time they'd hugged that hard, that it had lasted that long, and he finds himself wishing it could last a little longer. 

On his bedside table, his phone vibrates. 

From the spot at Dan's feet, over them rather than next to them like Buffy usually does, Colin lifts his head. Dan reaches out for the phone with one hand, and pats the bed next to him with the other. 

Colin moves up to flop down beside his ribs and Dan unlocks his phone to find a text from Phil. 

_Buffy misses you_

Dan smiles. Something warm yet sad twists in his gut.

_i miss her too i have colin with me atm_ he says, _give her pets from me_

_She said thank you but also be here plz. Say hi to Colin from me_

Dan pets Colin on the head, "Phil says hi," he tells him in a whisper. Colin doesn't have much of a response beyond pushing his head into Dan's hand, but Dan hadn't expected him to.

_done_ Dan says _is she really bad_

Dots appear at the bottom of the screen, then stop. Dan is about to follow his message up with another one, asking if maybe Phil wants to FaceTime to calm her down, but then the dots resume.

_She's alright, it's not too bad_ Phil says, followed by another message a few seconds later, _Can't say the same for me_

Dan's breath catches. For the first time he wonders if he wants that to mean something more than it does.

They spend too much time together, and Phil is just acknowledging how weird that is. Dan is the one that misses him in a way that feels… different. 

_yeah_

Dan thinks that will be the end of it. Conversation just fading out as so many of their conversations do, they don't have a need for hello and goodbye when it feels like their conversations don't really end. 

Dan has been known to text Phil about something while out and then walk through the door with a response to the last text Phil sent him already on his tongue. Texting exists like a permanent fixture, between the conversations, sometimes in addition to them. 

They text next to each other on the couch when they're too lazy to talk, from the next room when they don't want to shout. On tour they had texted from bunk to bunk so as not to wake everyone up. 

Wherever Dan is, he always has a direct line to Phil right there in his pocket, never broken.

And yet, he still feels so far away right now. 

Dan closes his eyes and puts his hand on Colin's curly fur. The rise and fall of his breathing is nice, but it isn't the same as Buffy's, or Phil's, and it doesn't feel the same.

Dan's phone is still laying on his chest so he feels it when it vibrates again.

_Am I weird if I say this feels like it did when we first met?_

Dan has to slide his eyes away from the screen and blink a few times to deal with that one. It doesn't help. He's in that same room, with the same brown furniture, and he can recall vividly what texting Phil had felt like all those years ago.

It felt like a revelation every time it happened. Like he didn't deserve Phil's understanding, his friendship. It was so unexpected amidst the sea of everything else in his life that Phil became this lifeline, a person with whom he could finally be himself and not feel judged. Phil was something safe.

He never really stopped being that.

_you're always weird_ Dan tells him, _but yeah_

Dots appear under Phil's side of the conversation for a few seconds, but then they stop. They stop for so long that Dan once again places his phone down and resigns himself to a sleepless night. 

What feels like an age later, his phone vibrates again.

_Do you think Buffy and Colin would be friends?_

_go to sleep phil_

Thankfully, Phil does seem to go to sleep because there are no more messages. Dan closes his eyes and tries to follow his own advice.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Christmas with Dan's family involves the same things every time. Dan trying desperately to avoid talking about his life, and his family asking too many questions about his life. 

He's a dab hand at ducking underneath questions without actually answering them, but it's worse this year because his brother isn't here to share the attack. The knky saving grace is that this time he has Buffy to talk about, to deflect attention away from him and instead show his grandma pictures of a cute dog. 

He's surprised at how well it works, honestly. 

The day is pleasant, and goes off without a hitch, even if it is a little weird not to have his brother at home, and Dan makes it through Christmas Day and Boxing Day without too many embarrassing incidents. 

By the time it gets to the twenty eighth, he's ready to go home. He has agreed to stay a bit longer this year because otherwise his mum would be alone. He usually escapes as soon as the festivities are over, and goes back to his empty flat to wait for Phil, who is always back by new year so they can at least celebrate that together. 

But this year Dan thinks that being in that empty flat might drive him crazy. It's already making him a little mad that there is no Buffy to sleep on his feet, none of Phil's long limbs to bump into in the middle of the night. 

All he has is a handful of texts every day, the odd picture of Buffy doing something festive and a story of how she has fallen in love with Martyn. Cornelia is there too, letting Buffy sit on her lap, all quiet and calm, while she hums something and strokes her gently. 

Dan misses them all with an ache in his chest, but knows that his place is here, and that is their family, not his. 

"Are you going to help me get this place back in order?" His mum asks.

He's scrolling through the photos on his phone, missing Phil wildly with every passing moment even though he's trying not to. So if anything, he's thankful for the distraction. 

"Sure," he says. 

He's tasked with washing the breakfast pots, while his mum flits about the house around him, putting in laundry and asking him if there's anything of his she can do. 

He can't remember the last time someone other than he or Phil did his laundry. Except professional services in the hotels on tour of course, but those don't count. 

"You're quiet," she says, coming up beside him with a dry tea towel and picking up a plate. 

"Sorry." 

"Wasn't a criticism, just an observation."

Dan washes the next bowl in silence, before deciding that ducking out from under this one is unnecessary. 

"Just home sick," he says. 

His mum chuckles, "weren't you on tour for half of the year? Aren't you used to it?"

Dan laughs back at her, and doesn't tell her how this feels different, somehow. 

In the hall, Colin's claws skid on the wooden floor and they both look over their shoulder. 

"Mad dog," Dan says. 

"What about your dog," she asks, "you've talked about her a lot." 

"She's not my dog, she's Phil's," Dan says, and then remembers that Phil had told him to stop doing that. "And I don't talk about her a lot." 

"Alright, if you say so." 

She doesn't sound like she's agreeing, but Dan isn't sure which part she's objecting to. 

Colin barks, loudly, and a wet plate slips from Dan's hand. 

"Uh oh," his mum says, "I spy trouble." 

"What?" 

A second later, the doorbell rings, and Colin barks again. 

"Told you." His mum dries her hands on a towel and goes to see which of her neighbours has come to offer them a merry Christmas. 

His mum is like that, she gets on with all the neighbours and knows them by ne. Dan can't think of anything worse. 

There is chatter in the hall, and a voice that makes Dan's ears prick up. A second bark joins Colin's, and Dan drops the forks he's been washing back into the water with a splash and darts to the hallway, hands still wet. 

"What the fuck?" 

His mum doesn't tell him off for the language because his grandma isn't here anymore, and anyway, it's valid in this instance. 

"You didn't tell me Phil was coming," she says, instead. 

Phil is stood in his mum's hallway, a backpack over his shoulder and Buffy on a lead. He's stooped over, hair a mess and drooping a little, and he's got his fingers hooked into Buffy's collar while Colin tries to wiggle out of his mum's grip. 

"I—" Dan says. 

"Hi Dan," Phil smiles. "Buffy missed you." 

Buffy, who is torn between running at Colin, or at Dan, barks once as if agreeing. 

Dan gets down on his knees and shuffles so that he can stroke her. His hands are still damp, but she doesn't seem to mind, just pushes her head into his hands and licks him anywhere she can reach. 

Colin barks behind him. 

"Oh quiet you jealous thing," he mum says, then to Phil, "you can probably let her off, Colin is fine with other dogs." 

"Um," Phil says, "I think she'll be okay?" 

Cautiously, Phil unfurls his fingers to let Buffy loose, though still with his other hand firmly on her lead. Dan's mum let's Colin go free and the two dogs immediately head toward each other. 

Dan stays on his knees, tense like he is ready to intervene should anything happen. 

The entire room holds its breath as the two dogs sniff at each other warily. Buffy smells Colin all over, from the space behind his ears to his butt, and Colin returns the favour. When it's over, Buff barks happily, once, and looks up at Phil. Phil grins, unhooks her lead, and the dogs run off together to the lounge.

"Well," Dan's mum says, "this is very exciting, I'm sorry I'm not lore prepared I wasn't expecting you." 

She glances down at Dan, who is still on the floor, and Dan just looks up at Phil helplessly. 

"Sorry," Phil says, "it was kind of… last minute." 

"Oh." 

Dan gets to his feet and his mum side eyes him once again before smiling widely. 

"It's just, I think Buffy missed Dan a lot and…" he clears his throat. "I can go?"

"Don't be silly," she says, only briefly looking towards the lounge where Buffy is obviously not bothered by Dan's presence one bit, "you're always welcome here." 

Dan thinks that might be the first time she's said something like that about Phil. It's always been implied, of course, but something in his stomach flips over to hear it. 

"We were just tidying up, but I think we're mostly sorted. Are you hungry? I can make some lunch?"

"Oh, uh…" 

"Thanks mum," Dan says, saving Phil from having to be so polite he talks himself out of food. 

When his mum goes back to the kitchen to robish the pots Dan has left and to put together leftovers for lunch, Dan rounds of Phil. 

"Um, what the fuck?" 

"You already said that."

"And I meant it." 

Phil doesn't respond right away, instead he looks down at his feet and shoves his hands in his pockets. 

"I was…" he shrugs, "I dunno. I was just sat there thinking about how I missed you and then I was looking at the ferries and the first one was today and I just… yeah."

"Yeah,' Dan repeats. 

"Is it weird?" 

"A bit," Dan says, "not gunna lie." 

Phil straightens, shrugging his shoulders. "Buffy missed you."

Dan isn't as subtle as he mum so he raises an eyebrow in the direction of the two dogs clearly wandering around the living room without a care. Colin had a new toy and is holding it in his mouth while Buffy trails after him as if she's waiting for her turn. 

Phil shrugs again. 

"I missed her too," Dan says, looking right into Phil's eyes so that there isn't much nuance in it, so that it's quite clear who it was he missed, really. 

During lunch, things get a little less awkward. Dan and Phil slip into their easy banter, and even his mum joins in a little bit. He likes it like this, when there aren't loads of people and it's just his mum, who is nice enough not to continue asking about his life and focus on Phil's instead. He catches himself watching them both at various points, struck by how easy it is. 

"I haven't made up a bed," his mum says, as they're finishing. 

"It's fine, mum," Dan says. Because it's nice, today, and maybe it makes him a little brave and a bit stupid to have Phil here when he's been missing him. He doesn't want him to go away again. "Phil can just bunk with me for a few nights." 

"Are you sure?" She looks at Phil. "I don't mind making you a room up."

"Thank you," Phil says, "but Dan is right, it's only a few days and I don't want to put you out. I've slept worse places."

"Oh yes, the tour, I bet. Tell me all about it!" 

Dan watches Phil tell his mum about some of the more colourful hotels they stayed in on tour, about the tiny bunks in the bus and how Dan slept through a minor accident. She listens with such attentiveness, asking genuine, interested questions, that it makes Dan think that if he told her more about this stuff, she might actually like to hear it. 

After lunch is long over, and Phil has been telling story after story, with Dan joining in to add his usual self-deprecating comments, or else picking on Phil, his mum looks at them both long and hard.

"You know, I think I get it," she says. 

"Get what?" Dan asks. 

"The whole thing." She waves a hand between them. 

Phil is sat on the couch and Dan is on the floor with Buffy and Colin. He's right by Phil's feet, one of which is against his left hip where Buffy is say so that she can touch both of them. 

"What thing?" Dan insists. 

"What all those people pay money for. You two are quite…" She cocks her head. "Funny… together. It's entertaining." 

Phil's face lights up, grinning down at Dan with a sparkle and the tips of his cheek a bit pink. 

Dan tries to hide his face by throwing a toy across the lounge and watching both dogs chase after it. 

"Right," his mum says, "those two need a walk before it gets too dark. You pair can make yourself useful." 

Phil gets immediately to his feet, eager to please. Dan is a bit slower to rise, climbing up from the floor. Phil puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him and Dan pulls away before his mum can see. 

Phil gets Buffy on her lead, and Dan sorts out Colin. They bundle into coat and Phil puts a hat on his head that can only have come from his aunt, and then they are alone on a cold street with two dogs pulling on their arms. 

"Sorry I turned up unannounced," Phil says when they're at the end of the street. 

"It's fine," Dan says, "I think my mum likes company. I'm the odd antisocial one in our family." 

"She's nice." 

"Yeah."

They round the corner and continue on down a lane, and Dan takes a breath of cold air, letting is expansive his lungs and then leave in a fog. 

Dan hums, the dog wandering ahead if them sniffing at the bottom of walls and the edges of bushes. They come together and move apart without reason, happy to be trotting along next to each other. 

Phil walks so close that their shoulders brush, and his hand knocks up against Dan's, fingers flexing so his knuckles slide into the gaps between Dan's. 

Dan jerks his hand away and side steps. Phil's face instantly falls, and he bites down on his bottom lip.

"No," Dan say, "I'm sorry I would… I'd hold your hand Phil." 

Phil doesn't answer, just blinks at him. His brows are creased, his mouth tugged tight. 

"Being here… ugh, just this place. People like, might know me." 

He realises it's a ridiculous thing to say, because they could get recognised anywhere, it's always a risk. But that isn't what Dan means at all, somehow the threat of some unknown fan spotting them doesn't seem half as scary as someone who might know him as the person he used to be, the person that lived in his mum's house and walked these streets with straight hair and too many defences. 

"I get it," Phil says, and he shoves his hand in his coat pocket out of the way. 

Dan is immediately sad about that. 

"I want to," Dan says, shocking himself by saying that out loud not just once, but twice now, "it's not… I wish we were home."

Phil nods, "alright."

He wishes Phil would elaborate, or say something to suggest that he understands, but Dan doesn't want to press him on it. Not least because that might mean having a discussion about the fact that they are even holding hands these days anyway. 

"Tell me about your Christmas," Dan says, changing the subject. 

"It was good," Phil says, "I feel like I told you everything on text, though." 

"So, tell me again."

Ahead of them, Colin stops to sniff at a Bush and Buffy walks on a few steps before looking back, and moving to join him. 

"Lots of food," Phil says, "Mum baked more on Christmas eve, like she thought we'd run out. We went out for a walk on the cliffs on Christmas day and we walked like… five million miles, Buffy was so tired afterwards, we all were. I had one glass of wine and then had to go to bed and we all slept in way too late on boxing day." 

Dan doesn't miss the part where Buffy slept completely fine without him there.

They reach the playground at the edge of a green space and Colin tugs like he wants to be let off his lead. 

"Do we dare let her off?" Dan says. 

"I don't know, what do you think?" 

"She's your dog, Phil." 

Phil blinks at him and Dan shrugs. Colin barks once, clearly impatient. Dan lets him off the lead and he instantly runs off across the empty field. Buffy whines softly, looking up at them both. 

Phil is still looking at Dan, frowning a little. "Our dog," he says. 

"Sorry," Dan says, voice soft. He sighs. 

He doesn't know what it is about knowing that Buffy was fine that makes him feel prickly, like he's rubbed raw.

Phil lets Buffy off the lead and she runs off after Colin. Dan instantly feels nervous but he knows Colin will come when called, and he hopes that means Buffy will follow. 

Phil wraps his arms around himself, braced against the cold, and Dan has the sudden urge to replace them with his own arms, to hold him close and warm him up. 

Dan steps to the side, out of Phil's space, and yet he still feels too close, too reachable. 

Phil smiles at him, slow and loaded with something Dan is too scared to examine. 

"Phil…" Dan whispers, unsure what he means to say next. 

Not that he needs to. Phil nods at him, like he knows what it was going to be, and they stare out at the darkening field to watch the dogs run around. 

Its quiet, wind harsh on their cheeks, hands warm in the pockets, and the dogs come quickly when called. 

On the way back to the house Dan is aware of each step, each time Phil's shoulder brushes his and the way something has changed, something. 

Dan wants it to feel easier than it does. It feels inevitable, and part of him is aching for it, for everything to shift entirely and end up upside down, but mostly it's fear that's settling heavy in his gut. 

Its fear that follows them into the quiet house, gone longer than they intended, fear that makes him just as quiet and still. 

Phil doesn't seem scared. He sets the dogs off running into the lounge and bids Dan's mum a goodnight. He meets Dan at the bottom of the stairs and it's him that slides his fingers between Dan's and tugs him onwards. 

"Phil," Dan says, again. The only word he's capable of seems to be Phil's name, like he can't think of anything else. 

"I know," Phil says. Because he does. 

They go to Dan's room, with his familiar walls, and the new bed, and it's just as strange to see Phil here among it all as it was to have him absent. Dan's head is filled with this moment now, with all the times he'd wishes Phil was where he is, right back to almost ten years ago. Right back to the beginning. 

Maybe it did start then, maybe this has been the way of it since they met and now it's blowing up in one brilliant, frightening instant. 

"Do you want to go to bed?" Phil asks. 

"Yeah... I'm--" Dan nods, running out of words but pulling his shirt off over his head. 

Phil looks at him, unblinking, and Dan realises it's a way that Phil has been looking at him for a while. Not familiar, exactly, but not unknown. 

Dan isn't good with this kind of thing. His therapist says he avoids conflict and while this isn't that, exactly, it makes his heart race and his mouth go dry. 

"I'll just… um." 

Dan escapes to the bathroom, breathing the cool air in the hallway in big gulps on the way. In the bathroom, he brushes his teeth and stares at himself in the mirror too long and too hard. 

This is going to hurt, he decides. 

Change is difficult for the most part, and this will be the biggest one yet if he lets it. And he will, he knows he will even if he were to tell himself he's not going to. 

And it's going to hurt. 

Resolved, Dan goes back to his room to find it lit by his bedside lamp and Phil under the covers. He sighs, softly, because Phil's head back on the pillow settles something, even as his heart is in his throat. 

He leaves the door only slightly ajar so that Buffy can get in if she needs to. Because she isn't here, she is happy playing with Colin and they're alone. 

The open door feels risky, but Dan reasons that his mum's room is the other way down the hall and that he's probably old enough that she's stopped peering into his room in the middle of the night. 

Then he gets into bed. 

He's done this so many times that it shouldn't be a shock to slide in next to Phil, and it isn't really except that Phil rolls over towards him. 

"Hey," Phil says. 

Dan takes a breath. "Hey." 

Later, Dan won't know whether he lets Phil start it, or whether he gives in and leans in first, but either way Phil's lips meet his and Dan sighs into it. 

It's like coming up for air, like everything had been a blur and it's only now coming into focus. Phil's mouth is timid, and Dan's is a touch too eager, but it doesn't need to be perfect to feel like he might die from it. 

Phil's hand is on his hip, warm and weighty, and Dan's hand has found its way into Phil's hair without him really intending it to. Nothing tonight feels like his choice, it feels like something inevitable. Something changed. 

They kiss for too long. Until the light at the window is inky black, until Dan's breaths are ragged and Phil's cheeks are pink. Dan's lips feel raw and yet he would keep going, he would let Phil kiss him just as long as he wanted to, until it hurt, and maybe then even a little longer. 

But they aren't that lucky, and life comes knocking in the form of Buffy nosing the door open.

Phil pulls away with a laugh, and a smile, and he pats the bed for Buffy to join them and doesn't acknowledge what just happened. He rubs at Buffy's head and baubles at her, and Dan stares at them both and wonders how Phil can be so normal when the ground beneath their feet has been shaken. 

Phil grins at him one more time, flicks the lamp off, and rolls over in bed to go to sleep. Buffy takes her usual spot at their feet, and sighs softly through her nose. 

Dan looks at the back of Phil's head, his messy hair fanned out on the pillow, tracks still in it where Dan's fingers had been. He flexes his hand on the duvet, curling the cotton in his fist and holding on as he squeezes his eyes shut and begs sleep to take him to no avail. 

Yeah, this is going to hurt.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

There is a hand on Dan's stomach when he wakes. Phil's fingers are lax, curled in towards his palm, but the weight of his arm draped solidly over Dan's entire body. Phil sighs, a gust of air on the back of his neck, and Dan sinks into the sensation of it for just a second. Buffy is by his feet, still asleep because neither of them have moved enough for her to realise they are awake.

His childhood bedroom feels different this morning. It isn't the cold, lonely place he has always known it is, instead it's cosy and warm and Dan finds that the urge to leave isn't as strong as usual. The walls are still a stupid, ugly combination of brown and gold, it's still sparse save for the bed, with little left behind to even identify it as ever belonging to him, but with Phil here it feels a bit more like home. 

Phil's body is warm along his back, and Dan pushes into it without thinking. Phil's arm tightens, hand splaying against the fabric of Dan's shirt, and Dan knows he's awake now too. He doesn't say anything, neither of them do, just linger in husher silence with bodies pressed together. Phil's fingers scratch lightly, the hem of Dan's t-shirt, the one he'd changed into last night before getting into bed, wrinkling under his touch. A sliver of Dan's belly is exposed in the process and when Phil's fingers graze it, Phil stops breathing and Dan gasps, lightly. 

Neither move, just for a second, but when Dan doesn't pull away Phil's fingers push under his shirt so that his palm is flat against Dan's stomach. His fingers are soft, and Dan's skin feels softer too somehow, the trail of hair shifting under Phil's fingers and Dan is aware of every follicle. 

Phil has been looking at him the same way for years, and that feels heavy or meaningful. It feels too much, like falling from a great height knowing there is nothing there to catch you. 

"Phil," Dan croaks, his voice deeper because it's morning or because Phil's hand has drifted to the elastic of his trousers. "What—"

"It's fine," Phil tells him, "it doesn't have to mean anything." 

And that's just it. It doesn't mean anything, all of this. Sharing a bed and sleeping in Phil's arms, Phil coming here to his childhood home and their dogs playing together in its rooms. None of it means what Dan wants it to, it's just that they've pushed at the boundaries of what being friends means so many times over the years that maybe they've gone too far. 

Maybe someone is going to get hurt. 

"I should feed Buffy," Dan says. 

He pulls out of Phil's grasp, and Phil's arm only flexes for a second to hold him there before letting him go. Buffy jumps as he moves, surprised but excited, and she hops off the bed to follow Dan out of the door like she knows he's looking for the excuse. 

Dan meets his mum in the kitchen and pours some of Colin's food into a bowl for Buffy. She eats with gusto and then follows Colin out of the door into the back garden. Dan flicks the kettle on and makes two coffees without even thinking about it, like muscle memory he adds the right amount of sugar to Phil's just as he hears his footsteps on the stairs. 

"Morning Phil," his mum says. 

Phil was brought up to be polite and so he answers cheerfully, but when Dan turns around he's met with a quizzical expression that can only mean Phil is still pondering what exactly happened this morning. 

Dan is too. 

He doesn't know what would have happened if he'd let Phil's hand continue to wherever it was headed, if he'd just rolled with it. But whatever had happened, Phil had still said that it didn't matter, that it didn't mean anything and all and so whatever the outcome, Dan would be hurt. 

Dan, and all the stupid, kicked up feelings he's now having. He realises, rather forcefully and without much time to get used to it, that he doesn't want something meaningless. He doesn't want the stretch of boundaries, a twisted definition of best friends where they do everything but mean none of it. 

He wants something else. 

He wants soft mornings in bed, Buffy around their feet or licking them to wake up. He wants quiet nights on the sofa pressed in close. He wants to hold Phil's hand in the park while they take their dog for a walk. And he wants all of that to _mean something_.

Dan's mum carries a basket of washing out into the hall and Phil rounds on him. 

"Dan…" he says. 

"Don't," Dan says. His voice curves around a plea, almost begging. "Can we just… not here. When we get home." 

"Right," Phil nods. "Then let's go home today." 

"Today? I thought we were staying until the thirty-first?" 

"I want… I think I should go home. It was wrong of me to come here. I guess I thought—" Phil sags, shoulder slumping and his head shaking steadily. "I want to go home. And I'd like you to come with me." 

Buffy comes in through the door and jumps up at Phil until he bends down to per her. Her tail wags and Colin isn't far behind and Dan sighs, looking at all the things he knows he's going to have to put an end to. 

"Alright," he says, "We can leave today." 

While Dan's mum is disappointed when Dan tells her, he doesn't think she's surprised. 

"Such homebodies," she says, fondly. "Both of you." 

Dan just shrugs at her and tells her that they're introverts who work from home so being anywhere else just feels weird. Which it does. This whole thing with Phil didn't seem so strange until the outside world got involved. 

When PJ and Sophie came into their bubble, or when they ventured out of it, the whole facade crumbled and Dan realised just how strange it all was, how far they'd pushed the limits of what could reasonably be contained in even their unorthodox relationship. 

Luckily trains are running and they can get Buffy onto the train without too much difficulty. She doesn't make too much of a fuss, just sniffs at the seats as she passes and then flops down over Phil's feet, head in the aisle. A mum with two kids stops and asks if they can pet her and she licks at their hands and they giggle. 

Dan usually likes travelling like this. Especially by trains, because there's the comforting rattle of the carriage along the rails, the soft melody of Dan's music in his ears, and Phil is beside him. Phil has been beside him on loads of trains through the years but he can still remember the ones he wasn't on. The one's he did alone, with Phil only as the prize at the other end. 

Dan wonders if all of this was there back then, if Martyn is right and it's been going on since the beginning. Has _he_ just been waiting for Phil all this time? And if he has, what does it mean now that he's realised it? Especially because, to Phil, it just 'doesn't mean anything'.

He doesn't like the train this time.

They walk Buffy from the underground back to the flat and she sniffs at all her regular bushes like they are old friends. Her tail wags on the way in, running up the stairs, zooming about the place, clearly happy to be back. 

Dan feels less enthusiastic. He knows what happens now, how they need to talk about what happened and what he needs to say about it. He feels nervous, churned up, like his insides are trying to run away from the inevitable tide of Phil's rejection. 

"Are we going to talk now?" Phil says. 

Dan is sitting on the floor with Buffy, he's rolling a ball for her across their wooden floors and she's running after it. It takes her a while to drop it when she brings it back, but she's getting there. 

"What about?" Dan shrugs, averting his eyes away. "There's nothing to talk about." 

"You can't just--"Phil sighs, and Dan knows he'll be pulling that face he gets when he's run out of words, the one where he's mad but sees little point in confronting it. "You know what? Fine."

Phil's feet shuffle on the floor, Buffy walks to him to show him the ball in her mouth like a prize but Phil doesn't bend down to her, doesn't praise her or pet her, he just turns away and goes down the stairs. Buffy drops the ball and follows him, leaving Dan alone. 

He knows he can't do this forever, but Dan would like to prolong the time before he has to face up to this thing. He just needs to get his head in order and decide what it is he's going to say. 

He wants things to go back to normal, whatever that means. The normal of before, not the normal of sharing a bed and allowing himself to hold Phil while he sleeps, waking up in his arms. He wants to go back to a time when all of the crazy nonsense in his head right now wasn't there, or was at least buried deep enough that he didn't know that it was. 

By the time they're going to bed, still having not spoken about anything at all for hours, Dan still hasn't decided what exactly he wants to say, just that he needs more time to work it out. 

When Phil meets him in the hallway on his way to bed, Dan shakes his head and looks down at his feet. 

"Buffy's fine," he says. "I don't think we need to— you should sleep in your own room." 

Phil puts a hand in the pocket of the pyjamas he's already wearing. His feet are bare, knobbly toes peeking out underneath, the smae toes Dan has seen a million times. Everything about Phil is familiar, Dan knows every facet of him like he's recorded it all over time, burned it into his brain. Even the way the next words that come out of his mouth sound sad and distant.

"Is that what you want?" 

Dan doesn't know what he wants other than for this to be easier. 

"I—" 

Buffy waddles over to him. She's getting big now, almost fully grown. Her ears are pointing, the expression on her face always bemused and interested in whatever it is they are doing. She just wants to be near them, all the time, but she's settled and she'd been fine at Christmas, hadn't she? 

She's going to be fine. Dan doesn't need to put himself through the heartbreak of this, he doesn't need to tempt himself with the way Phil says 'it doesn't have to mean anything' because he knows that given that option even once more, he'd give in. And then where would he be? 

It hurts. He knew that it would but it doesn't stop it from happening. 

"I think that's for the best," he says. 

Buffy sits, tail wagging against the floor with a swooshing sound and Dan bends to run his fingers over the space between her ears. She pushes her head into his hand, tongue lolling. 

She doesn't understand, of course, she just knows that Dan is petting her and that it feels nice and that Dan is a person she likes. She doesn't understand that she is not his dog, she's Phil's, and Dan has been pretending for long enough that this is something he could have. 

"But—" 

"Buffy will be fine," Dan says. "She was fine at Christmas and she'll be fine now."

"What if she's not?" 

Dan looks at Buffy, at her dark eyes and caramel fur. She pushes her nose into his palm and he pulls his hand away and chases him softly, asking for the stroking to continue. 

"Then she'll get used to it," Dan says. "She has to eventually, right? This can't go on forever." 

"No," Phil says, swallowing hard before continuing. "I guess it can't. You're right, it is for the best." 

Even though Dan is the one to suggest it, it still hurts when Phil agrees. Like Dan expected him to insist, to act like their situation was sustainable in any way. Dan is pretty sure that if Phil had, if he'd made even a token argument, Dan would have folded underneath it and gone easily back into the same routine they've had for a while. He'd have burned from the inside and kept sleeping beside Phil for as long as he'd have him because he's weak. So all in all, it's probably for the best that Phil turns into his own room, Buffy at his heels, and Dan is left alone to walk into his.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Waking up alone is strange at first, and Dan has still stuck to his side of the bed. His arm is thrown out over what he considers Phil's side, but there are no glasses on the bedside table, no Buffy weighing down his feet, and no Phil on the other side of the mattress. 

The house is quiet. He'd left his door ajar a little, thinking that Buffy might come into his room in the night, or that Phil might have a change of heart and decide to fight him on the decision to sleep apart, but none of those things happened. 

Everyone is absolutely fine with this situation, it seems. Except for Dan. 

Dan still feels it hurting, aching deep down inside where the new bundle of feelings for Phil reside. 

He isn't sure, but he thinks that maybe he's made a mistake. 

He needed time to think, that's all. About whether the feelings were something he could get over, whether he too could think of all of this as something that 'didn't mean anything' like Phil does, or whether it was something he needed to come clean about. 

Staring at his ceiling, at the crisp white lines of his room, the light peeking in around the blinds, he contemplates what that would look like. To tell Phil everything that's been going on in his head. He pictures what it would be like to confess that he might want something different than what they currently have, that he might want the bed sharing and the dog ownership to be _theirs_ , that maybe all of those desires and wants started right at the beginning. He pictures telling Phil that Nigel is right, that Martyn is, that maybe Dan has been feeling these things since the beginning he just never really noticed. Because what they have is good, he's never wanted _more_ or thought that there was something lacking, it's just that he thinks that he might want something different now. Something with different boundaries to it, different expectations. 

He isn't sure Phil feels the same way. 

Picturing all of that, he can only envision one outcome. One where Phil tells him that he doesn't feel the same, that he's only comfortable with what they have and nothing further and that even that is ruined now because Dan has brought all of this up and how the hell has it been going on since the beginning and Dan never said anything? And— 

No. Dan isn't telling him. Which means his only option, to keep Phil in his life, it to get over it. And putting an end to sharing a bed and pretending they share a dog is the only way to do that. 

He needs to start living his own life. Separate from Phil. 

He gets out of bed, determined and a little crazed. He bundles the clothes he took with him for Christmas out of his suitcase and into his arms and carries them up the stairs to the washing machine. 

When Buffy hears him pass Phil's room she comes out to see him, and Dan is happy to feed her breakfast and pet her behind the ears because while she isn't his dog she does still share his space and so he's happy to care for her. He loves her, he can't help that. 

Phil appears not long after. His hair is floppy in the front, eyes ringed with red behind his glasses which Dan isn't going to mention. His t-shirt has wrinkles in it around the hem, and his hand is rubbing at the back of his neck and shoulder like it's aching. He didn't sleep well. 

"Morning," Phil says. 

His voice sounds normal, as if nothing at all happened yesterday, as if Dan has been going over and over the whole thing in his head for the past few hours instead of sleeping, and Phil hasn't thought about it at all. 

"Morning." He tries to make his voice sound the same. 

"How did you sleep?" 

Phil is just going to come right out and ask. He's just going to stand there and not honour the pact Dan had thought they were going to have to avoid it completely and let things go back to normal. 

"I slept fine," Dan says. "And Buffy didn't stir, so I guess everything is fine."

Phil nods, his head moving quickly, jerkily. 

"I was going to make coffee," Dan says, doing his level best to communicate just how much he wants to move past this and stop talking about it. "Did you want some?" 

Phil shrugs, pauses, and shakes his head. "I'll get some when I take Buffy out." 

"Alright." 

Dan isn't going to pretend that doesn't hurt. Its subtle, as a lot of their conversations are, because they say things without saying them, but Dan isn't going to walk Buffy now. Phil is going alone because she is Phil's dog and this is the new normal. 

And that's fine. That's how it should be, but it punches Dan in the gut anyway, digs in its spiked claws and twists. 

Phil goes back downstairs and Dan goes back to his washing, and coffee, and building his life back up to where it was before. 

By the time he hears the scrabble of Buffy's feet and the click of the front door, his washing is done on its dryer cycle. He drags it out of the machine and takes it downstairs to dump on his bed. 

He folds it. T-shirts with t-shirts, jeans with jeans, there's a sense of order out of the chaos. He's so immersed that when his phone rings he answers it without looking at the name on the screen.

"Hello?"

"Hi Dan, it's Mum."

"Oh," Dan says, "You're calling me."

"You don't have to sound so surprised." 

"I'm not," he insists, folding a t-shirt and placing it on top of the others. There's a stray Buffy hair on the collar of it but he doesn't brush it off. "I just… I saw you a couple of days ago." 

"I know. But I was just sitting here thinking about you leaving and it struck me that maybe I should have asked if you were okay." 

"I'm good. Why wouldn't I be?" 

There are no more clothes to fold, nothing to distract him from this conversation. He doesn't know why she's calling, this isn't what they do, and he almost wishes he hadn't answered the phone.

"Oh, I don't know. Phil turned up unexpectedly, I just wondered if there was more of a story there." 

"With Phil?" Dan hesitates, because she can't be asking what he thinks she is. Not after the morning he's already having, not when he's trying to get everything back to the way that it was. 

This isn't the way that it was, his mum asking about Phil and his _feelings_ is nothing close to any kind of normal he's used to. 

"Yes with Phil. Dan, you know you don't need to hide things from me. I do just want you to be happy." 

"I'm—" Dan pauses, because he wants to tell her he's happy, that she doesn't need to worry, but he can't say for sure that she shouldn't. "Thanks for checking in." 

"You're avoiding the question."

"I'm not." 

"You are. You're my son and you've been avoiding questions for twenty seven years, I'm used to it by now." 

"Sorry." 

She sighs, softly, and Dan can hear the sound of the sofa moving underneath her as she shifts. "Can I say something without you getting mad?" 

"I don't get mad." 

"Sometimes you do." 

"Okay." Dan sits down on the edge of the bed, folded clothes toppling over. "I won't get mad, what do you want to say?" 

"Are you and Phil together?" 

"What?"

"I know, I know." Her voice is rushed, high, a little singsong. "I know you have people asking that all the time and I usually wouldn't pay it any mind at all because I figured you'd tell me something like that… but you got this dog together, and then Phil showed up here and you looked— I don't know. I've been thinking about it and I guess deep down I've always thought…" 

Dan doesn't say anything when she trails off. His stomach is lurching, rolling over itself and he might throw up. This isn't happening, his mum isn't really asking him this right now, is she?

"You were such good friends so quickly…" 

Dan wants to find words to respond to that but what is there he could say? He doesn't want to lie and say it was never like that because he's beginning to think that for him it was. And they were friends quickly, it did happen fast, because they understood each other right from the beginning. Phil was the _only_ person that understood him, the only one that made him feel safe and wanted and whole. 

But how does he explain that to his mum of all people?

"I think," she continues, "I've been waiting for you to tell me. But I don't want to force you to say anything you're not ready for, I just want you to know that I… I want you to be happy. And I love you." 

"Mum…" 

"Alright, I know this probably isn't very fair of me. I don't know what the right thing to do in this situation is. But I worried that you would think— That you might just need to hear that. I'm here for you no matter what, you know that right?" 

Dan doesn't realise he's crying until he opens his mouth and his words come out strangled. "I'm not with Phil," he says. 

"Okay." 

Dan walks over to his bedroom door and clicks it closed. Phil is still out with Buffy but in case he comes back, Dan really doesn't want him walking in on this conversation.

"But—" he swallows, takes a breath. "But I am… I think I'm in love with him." 

He hasn't said that out loud yet. He hasn't even thought it in those terms before but it's true, he can tell when he says it that it is. He can't take it back now, it's out in the world, with his _mum_.

"Well that's… I love you, okay Dan? That's the first thing."

"I know."

And Dan is really crying now. Letting everything tumble over each other, this conversation, the one with Phil. How it all hurts in ways he hadn't accounted for because he knows he's been hiding stuff from his mum, but he hadn't realised he was still hiding things from himself. 

He's in love with Phil. Of course he's in love with Phil, who the fuck else would he be in love with? 

"And Phil," his mum says, "does he feel the same?" 

"I don't… I don't think so." 

"But you don't know for sure?"

"What you said," Dan whispers, "About waiting for me to— Kath and Nigel said the same thing, and Martyn, they said that they thought that we had been… you know, since the beginning." 

"No one knows what goes on between the two of you except you," his mum says, "and if you had been— well, even if you have felt the way that you feel since you met, that's okay." 

"Is it?" Dan says, abandoning the idea of hiding anything at all in favour of just looking to his mum for help. He doesn't do this, ever, he doesn't cry on the phone to his mum about being in love with boys, but he also doesn't accept that he's in love with his best friend, or share a bed with said best friend, the whole world is upside down and inside out and nothing makes sense. So crying on his mum's shoulder is as good a strategy as any. "It doesn't feel okay. It hurts." 

"I know," she says, her voice soft and soothing. He doesn't think he's heard it that way since he was a kid and fell over in the playground, not because she hasn't been offering it, but because he hadn't been interested in listening. "Are you really sure he doesn't feel the same? When he was here… well, he turned up, didn't he?" 

"He said Buffy missed me." 

Dan's mum is silent for a moment, just a beat, but Dan feels it expand out and engulf him all the same. 

"Dan," his mum says, "I know you're a smarter person than that." 

"What?" 

"Dan, _Phil_ missed you, people don't travel across the country unexpectedly because their dog is playing up. They just don't." 

"I would," Dan mutters. 

"But she's not your dog," she says, "remember? That's what you told me." 

"I—" Dan just sighs. "Yeah." 

"He missed you," his mum continues, as if Dan's protest means nothing at all. "He missed you and he couldn't stand to be away from you for a couple of nights despite the fact that you live together and have done for the better part of what… ten years? Wow. Has it been that long?" 

"Yeah." 

"You've spent ten years with him, Dan. That means something." 

"Not _with_ him—" 

"You know what I mean, don't pretend to be an idiot because I know you're not." 

Dan hears the door open and close in the hall. Buffy barks, and then there is a scratching sound against his door and Phil saying, "No, Buffy, come on." 

"I have to go," Dan says. 

"Okay. Promise you'll call me soon, alright? And maybe… talk to Phil. Even if he doesn't feel the same way it would still be good to get it out in the open." 

"But what if— I don't want to lose him." 

"You won't," she says, "Ten years, Dan. Ten years, and a dog, and he still travels across the country for you. He isn't going anywhere." 

Buffy scratches again and Dna promises to call his mum soon, telling himself that he will in fact follow through on that. When he's off the phone, he opens his door and Buffy immediately jumps to put her soggy paws on Dan's knees. 

"Alright B," he says, fondly, "you terror." 

"Sorry," Phil says. 

"What for." 

"For… you know, storming out." Phil's hair is windswept. He's got his contacts in and a black t-shirt on and he looks a whole lot more put together than this morning. "I didn't… I didn't actually sleep that well." 

"Was Buffy okay?" Dan asks, "She didn't keep you up?" 

"No." Phil shakes his head, hair flopping. "I just didn't— she was fine. I wasn't." 

"Oh." 

"Yeah. Don't worry though, it'll all be… you know, fine." 

Phil shrugs and then he goes towards the stairs to make his way up. _Ten years_ , Dan thinks, _Ten years, and a dog, and he still travels across the country for you._

"I didn't sleep well either," Dan says. "Pretty terribly, actually." 

"Oh," Phil says, mouth twitching. 

It isn't talking about it, exactly. It isn't dealing with everything that's happened or even telling Phil about any of the stuff in his head, but it does feel like making a start. It feels like finally trying to be honest and open, so maybe he can keep doing it.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

They sleep apart again the next night. Buffy is still fine, although she elects to sleep on Dan's feet and not Phil's and while it makes Dan happy, Phil looks a little down about it in the morning. 

"I can close my door," Dan says, "so she can't get in." 

"She'll only scratch at it," Phil tells him, "she misses you." 

Dan rubs Buffy behind the ear where she's sat over his lap. She's had her breakfast and they're all awake and gathered in the living room and things aren't totally awkward, but they're still a bit stilted. 

"I miss her too," Dan says. He's trying to maintain more of that honestly, but he isn't yet sure how willing he is to say more. 

He isn't about to confess his love for Phil or anything, but confronting the fact that this situation isn't ideal, that they're allowed to feel weird about it, is a good first step. 

"Come walk with us," Phil says. 

"Yeah?" 

"If you want to." 

Buffy hears Phli mention the magic word and hops off of Dan's lap. She had a routine, she's used to it, so when Dan follows them to the door and shrugs into his coat, she trots along in front, happy to let them snap on her lead and venture out into the crisp, cool morning. 

It's almost another year, this one tripping over into the next, and they don't have plans for tonight except maybe shielding Buffy from any firework there might be. There aren't many people around on the route, and although they walk a little further apart than they have been usually, it almost feels like it could be back to normal. 

Dan realises that he has missed this, missed walking Buffy with Phil and being with him in the stillness of a new day waking up. He doesn't know how he thought he could live without it. But he can have this and still not have to confront all the other stuff, right? 

He can have this without having to confess. 

It's a peaceful day, a bit grey and muted, but nevertheless nice to walk along in near-silence with his best friend. He feels hopeful, that he can get over the feelings he's having and move on, that he and Phil can be friends without the need to shift any boundaries. They can look after Phil's dog until they no longer live together, and then maybe Phil will let him come over to wherever he is living to visit her sometimes. They're best friends, that doesn't go away. They'll be in each other's lives forever. 

_Ten years_ , Dan thinks. You can't erase that with a couple of months of sharing a bed. 

They follow their usual route, looping up and down the green and stopping for coffee. Dan holds Buffy's lead and Phil goes in to get it and it feels easy, and fun, and he doesn't think about how Phil's fingers brush his when he passes Dan his cup and takes back the lead. 

They stroll back, past the shop where they sometimes buy Buffy treats and Dan looks over at Phil and says, "New Years treat?" 

"Definitely." 

Dan buys it. Phil stays outside this time, hand tight on Buffy's lead and Dan spends a bit too much buying a large chewing bone that will take Buffy hours to devour. She's worth it. 

She sniffs at the bag in Dan's hands when he comes back, and Dan has to bat her away gently. 

Back at home, they both settle in to answer emails. They're technically on their break before Christmas, but there are always emails to be answered and if they can get a head start on them then they will. 

It's a comfortable kind of silence. Phil sits at the desk with the PC because he likes to have a desk sometimes when he really wants to get in the zone, but Dan stays slumped on the couch, answering business enquiries with bad posture. 

Lunch rolls around and they make sandwiches and play with Buffy. They let her out on the balcony and nothing feels bad, nothing is awkward or awful. Dan could completely forget that there's a problem at all but then Phil will look at him a certain way, run a hand through his hair or bite his lip and Dan will wonder how he didn't notice before, how on earth he's gone all these years without realising that he's in love with this man. 

Because it's obvious. 

And maybe it's obvious to Phil, too. Maybe Phil knows about Dan's pathetic feelings and that's why he'd said 'it doesn't have to mean anything' to set Dan's expectations. Except, no. Dan can't imagine that Phil would want to hurt him if Phil knew anything about Dan's feelings he wouldn't have shared a bed with him in the first place. He'd have kept a polite yet appropriate distance at all times until such a time that Dan was over it. Because that's who Phil is, he's kind and nice and respectful, he wouldn't want to hurt Dan intentionally. 

By the evening, they've moved past it enough to sit on the couch together and watch the live feed of New Year's celebrations. There don't appear to be any fireworks to scare her just yet, though they've both agreed that if that happens Phil will take her downstairs. 

"I'm sorry things were… I'm just sorry," Phil says. 

They've just been watching the TV, waiting for midnight to roll around and drinking a glass of wine, so there's no reason for him to say it now. It shatters the calm, digs up all the messy and the weird and Dan wants to pack it all away again. 

"You don't… I'm the one that should be sorry," Dan tells him. "I just… we had to stop at some point." 

"You're right," Phil nods. "I know that. I think I just told myself it wasn't a big deal, that it didn't mean— well. Whatever I thought, I was wrong. And I'm sorry." 

Dan's mouth is dry, he swallows against the raw lump of it and musters up a smile. "It wasn't a big deal. Not in the sense that I… we're friends, Phil. We've done weirder shit than that." 

He has to claw this back, break the rising tension with a joke and a laugh because he's scared of what could be on the other side of this conversation if he doesn't. He's afraid he'll tell Phil everything, how it is a big deal for him because sleeping next to Phil, just sleeping, made him realise all of these things that he's been repressing for fuck knows how long, and he's petrified about what might have happened if it was more than sleep. 

"I think Buffy deserves her New Year's treat now," Dan says. 

"You think?" 

"Yeah," Dan says, "I think so." 

Phil's acting cool, but he's just as excited to give her the overly-large treat as Dan is. He spoils her, they both do, but she deserves it. 

When they do give it to her, her tail wags so hard that Dan thinks she's going to do herself an injury. The thing barely fits in her mouth but she carries it off to the side of the other couch to gnaw at, like she needs space for all the work she's going to be putting in. 

Phil chuckles and Dn is grinning, they meet each other's eyes and Dan was right, this is the moment that he realises, that he knows, it's not going to be easy to get over Phil. This isn't just a passing thing, he isn't confused or mixed up he's in love. And while those things feels similar, they are not the same at all. 

"What?" Phil says.

"Huh?"

"You're looking at me weird." 

Dan drops back down on the couch beside him and turns the volume up on the TV, "Am not. Shut up, they're going to count down soon." 

The countdown is spectacular. Dan has a fleeting moment where he thinks maybe if he confesses on the stroke of midnight that Phil will return his feelings like a miracle and then everything will be okay. But Dan can't do it when the bell finally chimes, and not long after Phil gets up, tells Dan Happy New Year again and Goodnight, and he pads off in the direction of his bedroom. Buffy stays in her spot, far too intent on destroying the treat they've given her to notice him leaving. 

Dan stays up for another two hours. Something plays on the television, and Buffy falls asleep next to her treat and Dan is cold all the way down to his bones in the chilled living room. 

This won't do. He can't live like this, can he? He can't spend another year, another month, denying how he feels about Phil because it isn't going to go away. He loves Phil, and maybe his mum is right in that he just needs to tell him, just needs to get it out there in the open so that they can both decide what to do with it. 

Phil deserves to know. 

His feet carry him down the stairs, mindless and drifting, following his thoughts rather than any particular direction. He's cold, and tired, hovering on the edge of a sleep he should already be in. They carry him right to Phil's door, and then his hand comes up to rap on the wood. He waits, until he hears the faint sound of Phil's sleep-leaden voice from behind it. 

"Yeah?" 

Dan cracks the door open. Phil is under his duvet, blinking and narrowing his eyes to see because he has no contacts in, no glasses on. The room beyond is dark, the blinds drawn, and Dan steps over the threshold. 

"I—" Dan says. 

Phil levers himself up onto his elbows, hands already scrabbling for his glasses as his brow twists into concern. 

"Dan? Are you alright? What happened?"   
"I'm… okay." 

Phil gets his glasses on and as Dan comes into focus it does nothing to quell the panicked expression clouding his face. "Is it Buffy? Is she okay?" 

"She's... " Dan's brain turns back on with a click only he can hear, an idea half-formed already. "I don't think she likes us being apart." 

"Oh." 

"I really think—" Dan shrugs, avoiding putting it into the words he wants to, leaving it for Phil to join the dots between one thought and the next. 

Phil takes a second, his eyes flicking over Dan's face, tired brain working through it all before he flicks back the corner of his duvet. 

"Get in, Dan." 

There are four steps between the door and the edge of Phil's bed and Dan takes them slowly, steeling himself. He climbs underneath the duvet, the mattress giving way beneath his knee. 

Once settled, Dan stares at the dim greatness of the ceiling and feels Phil shift about restlessly, taking his glasses back off and pulling the duvet up to his chin. 

"Dan…" Phil says. 

"Don't Phil, can I just stay here, please?" 

"I wasn't going to ask you to leave." 

Dan looks at him and finds Phil staring at him through the dark. He rolls over so their bodies are turned toward each other, but not touching. 

"Is this really about Buffy?" Phil asks. 

Dan shakes his head. His hair bristles against the pillow and it sounds loud in the silence between them. 

"Then, what?" Phil asks.

"Does it have to be about anything?" 

Phil sighs. It's loud, and surprising, and Dan flinches just the tiniest bit. 

"Yes," Phil says, louder and sharper than anything that went before. "It has to be about something, Dan. Because I'm just… it's confusing. You're confusing. So please, please can it be _about_ something?" 

Dan, faced with the way Phil's eyes have gone wide and pleading, loses all impetus to keep anything inside. Suddenly, his own comfort means little when Phil is so affected. 

"Sorry," Dan says. "It isn't about Buffy. I just… I miss you. I can't sleep without you anymore." 

"I thought we had to get used to it?" 

Dan shrugs. "Yeah. Maybe." 

"You said that. You were the one that decided we shouldn't… do this. Anymore. What changed?"

"I just didn't think it was… it was better. If we didn't."

"For you?" Phil asks, "or me?" 

"Both," Dan says, immediately, and then, "you. It isn't fair for me to keep on… it was better if I just stopped."

"Can I just…" Phil sighs again, a little angrier. "Can I just ask you something? And can you be honest with me? Because I feel like we haven't been having honest conversations for a while."

"Yes." Dan hooks his arm under the duvet and hunkers down, breathing in the scent of Phil's sheets.

"Do you remember whose idea it was for us to share a bed?" 

"It was… yours."

"Yes. Mine. And I tried to do this a different way because I didn't want to… but you're not getting it." 

"Not getting what?" 

"I slept with you for months, Dan. I came to your mum's house because I missed you so much. I don't want to stop doing this." 

Phil shifts closer, and Dan accepts the warmth of his body, shivers underneath it, and closes his eyes when Phil's arm slides over his waist. 

"I don't want to stop doing this either," Phil says. 

"Phil…"

"Be honest," Phil reminds him. 

"I don't want to stop." Dan's eyes are still closed, words soft around his confession."That's why it's so bad. I think… I think maybe it's been going in for a while."

"What has?" 

Dan opens his eyes. He looks into the deep blue depths of Phil's and knows that even though he can't see Dan properly, the soft fond look on his face is directed at him anyway. 

"Me being in love with you." 

He mostly expects Phil to move his arm, to roll away and ask Dan to get out of his bed because this will be a step too far. He doesn't.

"You're in love with me?" 

The corner of Phil's mouth is jerked upward, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening. 

"I… yes." Dan daren't hope, he can't bear it if the rising soaring hope in his chest comes crashing down around them. 

"I kissed you in your bed," Phil says. 

Dan hadn't been sure at the time, or even much after it, who had kissed who. Perhaps he's convinced himself that he was the one to start it, that Phil has just gone along with it. But now here Phil is saying that it was him, that he had been the one to—

"You did." 

"Well then. Don't you get it?" 

Dan lifts his chin. Phil is still smiling at him, his arm over Dan's waist. Dan shifts closer, he puts his arms around Phil and feels his body press the length of him. 

"Yeah," Dan says, "I think I do."

Phil smiling, blinding and bright and full of the love that has probably been there all along. Boundaries have shifted, and neither of them has a desire for them to shift back. They're best friends, always will be, that isn't going to change.

Do it again," Dan says, and Phil does.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

The first day of the new year, Dan wakes to lips on his neck, the soft drag of Phil's mouth making its way down over his bare shoulder. 

"Mm," he hums, "Morning." 

"Morning." 

Phil is pressed against the length of him with intention. He's still naked from the night before, still warm and wrapped around Dan like he doesn't want to let him go. 

"Buffy is on the bed," Dan says. 

Phil pulls his mouth away and looks down to where Buffy is draped across Dan's feet, and groans, softly. 

Dan doesn't know when she arrived, but he thinks perhaps a repeat performance of last night wouldn't be right with her watching them. It'd be weird. 

"Keep it in your pants," Dan chuckles. 

"Not wearing any," Phil retorts, pressing his hips forward as if to prove it. He's warm everywhere, but positively scorching there, fire-hot against Dan's own nakedness, and Dan would love nothing more than to indulge in this new thing, explore all the things he's allowed to do now, but Buffy wakes up and yeah, it would be weird. 

She bounds up the bed, diving between them so that they spring apart and both reach a hand out to fuss her. 

"Terror," Dan says, fondly. 

The room is still dim, the blinds blocking out the light of the day, but Dan can still pick out the edges of Phil's profile. 

"Hi," he says. 

Phil smiles, the deep cupid's bow in his mouth stretching, "Hi." 

Dan still has a little bit of lingering disbelief. Only last night this had felt so out of reach that it might as well have been impossible. But Phil is here, and Dan is in his bed, and Dan is allowed to lean across the space between them and capture his mouth in a long, lingering kiss. 

"That was… nice," Phil says. 

Dan laughs at him, and rolls out of bed. "Dork," he throws over his shoulder. 

Phil doesn't respond, just looks at Dan with an expression Dan realises he's had for a while, except now it's accompanied by his eyes wandering away from Dan's face and down, down… 

"Hey," Day says, "eye's front." 

"Sorry," Phil says, not looking at all like he is. 

Dan reaches for his discarded jogging bottoms and pulls them on. He forgoes the shirt, because he can't find it anyway. Buffy follows him out of the door, and he feeds her quickly before making his way to the shower. He's trying to make this a normal morning, because if he doesn't his mind will wander off down the path of trying to go over everything that just happened and he doesn't think he can cope with that yet. 

It's crazy, all of it, but it feels really right. 

Phil catches up to him at the bathroom door and presses him back against the doorframe. Dan submits himself to being kissed, thoroughly, and melts underneath it, heart hammering wildly. It's like it always is with Phil, like anything is, exciting, fun, and easy. They've moved from how they were before to this but somehow it doesn't feel like _more_ just, _different_. Like the potential for this has always been there, just unseen. 

"I like that I can do that now," Phil says as they part, "I wanted to do it a lot." 

"Really? A lot?" 

Phil nods, biting down on his bottom lip. Dan thinks he looks cute, as he so often does, and then they lose a few more minutes to kissing just because they can. 

When they finally untangle themselves, Phil leaves him alone to go make coffee for both of them while Dan showers. When he's done, they trade, and Dan sips his coffee as he gets dressed. It's like their old routine, except Dan is carrying a beautiful thing that blooms in his chest every few seconds. 

"Me too," Dan says, "I thought about it… a lot. Too."

Phil smiles, that same look on his face he gets whenever Dan interacts with Buffy. 

"Oh," Dan says, "that's what that is."

"What, what is?" 

"You get this look sometimes, the one you have now… and I never knew what it meant before."

"What does it mean?" 

"You tell me."

Phil pulls him closer, his lips press to the space under Dan's ear and Dan is sure he must be able to feel how hard his heart is beating. 

"It means I hope I can keep this forever. You and Buffy and our little…thing."

"Family," Dan says, recalling the first time Phil ever posted about Buffy. 

"Yeah. I guess it means I'm thinking that it's nice, and I want to keep it forever."

"Alright," Dan agrees. "We can do that."

When they finally drag themselves apart, they get dressed. They bundle into coats and Buffy meets them at the door when she hears the tinkle of her lead. She follows them onto the street, to the park, to their usual route. 

Dan's hand brushes against Phil's and Phil slots their fingers together easily, the corner of his mouth tugged into a smile that probably matches the one on Dan's face. 

It's a bright but cold day. The breeze cuts a line across the park, and Buffy charges ahead of them. She shoves her nose into bushes, looking back over her shoulder to make sure they are following, tongue lolling and tail wagging. She is happy, she's always happy to have them both with her, near her, that's all she's ever wanted. She could see the sense in it before either of them could. 

"When you say a while," Phil says, "how long are we talking?"

"What? A while for what?"

"You said you'd been… in love with me… for a while."

"Yuh huh."

"So…" Phil bumps his shoulder into Dan's and Dan grins at him. "How long is a while?" 

"I…" Dan looks out across the park. There are little groups of people, couples walking side by side. There's the odd dog, too, families and people enjoying the rush of a new Ryan, a new leaf turned over should they wish to accept it, make use of it. "Honestly?"

"Yes," Phil says. "Honestly." 

"Then I think maybe… since the beginning. Or close to it. I can't really pinpoint a day when it started, but then I can't remember when I didn't feel like this. I just didn't realise that that's what this was, you know? I always knew we were… that what we had wasn't like anything else I had, or ever would, but I didn't necessarily know… the rest of it."

Phil's mouth is open ever so slightly and he's cocking his head in Dan's direction. "That long?" 

"It's not like I was pining," Dan clarifies. "I didn't think about wanting anything different until we started sharing a bed. What we had before wasn't like.. not enough. It was everything, it still is. I just realised that you were it for me, the person I wanted to… have a dog with."

"A dog?"

"A life," Dan continues, scared he might be laying on too much pressure. But it's a new year, a chance to start something new. To be brave.

"I want that too," Phil says. "In my head it was just always… I mean I knew that maybe one day you would move on or whatever, but it never made sense to me so I just didn't think about it. I couldn't see any version of my life where it wasn't me and you."

"Me you and Buffy," Dan corrects him. 

"Exactly," Phil says. "Me you and Buffy."

Phil ducks in, quick, to press a swift kiss to Dan's mouth, and Dan is momentarily stunned by it. His lips tingle as they pull apart, and a soft breath escapes him. He can feel the warmth of Phil's skin against his for a few ,omens after it's gone. 

Buffy, in a moment so well timed she might have planned it, chooses that moment to dive headfirst across the grass, pulling the lead out of Phil's lax grip. She bounds off, running toward a group of people sat on a bench, a tan and white dog on a lead clutched in one of their hands. 

"B!" Dan shouts, taking off at a run aFter her, Phil following closely behind. "Come back!"

He catches up to her fairly quickly, just as she is barking and trying to introduce herald for the other dog, who dives shyLy behind his owner's legs. 

"Sorry," Dan says to the family, "that's my dog, she's friendly."

Buffy yaps again, and the other dog pokes its nose of of its hiding place to sniff at her. 

"Too friendly," he says, laughing awkwardly and picking up Buffy's lead, pulling on it to make her come away. 

"No problem," one of the women says, "Henri is just shy."

"Well, it was nice to meet you Henri," Dan says, laughing fondly at the timid snout poking out from under the bench, "come on, B."

Phil comes up behind them just as Dan is walking away.

"Disaster averted," Dan says. "She just wanted to say hello to the other dogs." 

"You called her your dog," Phil says as they make their way back home. 

Dan thinks back over the conversation. He had, hadn't he? It had just come out, had sounded so natural that he hadn't even thought about it. 

"Well she is," Dan says, "our dog." 

Phil links their fingers back together and squeezes furiously, "yes," he says, "she always was." 

They walk about to the flat, to their routine and this new year and new life full of all the possibilities. He likes this picture, the three of them, it makes sense. 

"Hey Dan," Phil says as they are hanging up their coats, "do you think Buffy would like to have a friend?"


End file.
